Delta of Venus

The Basque and Bijou

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 naïve, crude way he was a great painter. They did not realize he copied from 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 than 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 trap 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 a 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 upward 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 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 liked 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 toward 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.

This is how the Basque found Bijou.

One day when he arrived at the house he was met by a melted Martian who told him that Viviane was busy. Then she offered to console him, almost as if he were a deceived husband. The Basque said that he would wait. Maman continued her teasing and caresses. Then the Basque said, ‘May I look in?’

Every room was arranged so that amateurs could watch through a secret aperture. Now and then the Basque liked to see how Viviane behaved with her visitors. So Maman took him to the partition, where she hid him behind a curtain and let him look.

There were four people in the room: a foreign man and woman, dressed with discreet elegance, watching two women on the large bed. Viviane, the heavy, dark-skinned one, lay sprawled on the bed. On her hands and knees over her was a magnificent woman with ivory-colored skin, green eyes and long, thick, curly hair. Her breasts pointed high, her waist tapered to extreme slenderness and spread again for a rich display of hips. She was shaped as if she had been molded in a corset. Her body had a firm, marble smoothness. There was nothing flabby or loose in her, but a hidden strength, like the strength of a puma, an extravagance and vehemence in her gestures as in those of Spanish women. This was Bijou.

The two women were beautifully matched, without timorous ness or sentimentality. Women of action, who both carried an ironic smile and a corrupt expression.

The Basque could not tell whether they were pretending or actually enjoying themselves, so perfect were their gestures. The foreigners must have asked to see a man and woman together, and this was Maman’s compromise. Bijou had tied on a rubber penis, which possessed the advantage of never wilting. So no matter what she did, this penis protruded from her female bush of hair as if nailed there by a perpetual erection.

Crouching, Bijou was sliding this fake virility not inside but between Viviane’s legs, as if she were churning milk, and Viviane was contracting her legs as if she were being tantalized by a real man. But Bijou had only begun to tease her. She seemed intent on making Viviane feel the penis only from the outside. She handled it like a door knocker, knocking gently against Viviane’s belly and loins, then gently teasing the hair, then the tip of the clitoris. At the last, Viviane jumped a little, and so Bijou repeated it, and Viviane jumped again. The foreign woman then leaned over as if she were nearsighted, to catch the secret of this sensitivity. Viviane rolled with impatience and offered Bijou her sex.

Behind the curtain, the Basque was smiling at Viviane’s excellent performance. The man and woman were fascinated. They stood right next to the bed, with dilated eyes. Bijou said to them, ‘Do you want to see how we make love when we feel lazy?’

‘Turn over,’ she commanded Viviane. Viviane turned on her right side. Bijou laid herself against her, entangling their feet. Viviane closed her eyes. Then, with her two hands Bijou made room for her entrance, spreading the dark-brown flesh of Viviane’s buttocks so she could slip the penis in, and she began to push. Viviane did not move. She let her push, thump. Then unexpectedly she gave a jerk like that of a horse kicking. Bijou, as if to punish her, withdrew. But the Basque saw the rubber penis glistening now, almost like a real one, still triumphantly erect.

Bijou began teasing again. She touched Viviane’s mouth with the tip of the penis, her ears, her neck, she rested it between her breasts. Viviane pressed her breasts together to hold it. She moved to join Bijou’s body, to rub herself against her, but Bijou was evasive now that Viviane was becoming a little wild. The man, bending over them, began to grow restless. He wanted to fall on the women. His companion would not let him, though her face was flushed.

The Basque suddenly opened the door. He bowed and said, ‘You wanted a man and here I am.’ He threw off his clothes. Viviane looked at him gratefully. The Basque realized she was in heat. Two virilities would satisfy her more than that teasing, elusive one. He threw himself between the women. Everywhere the foreign man and woman looked something was happening that enthralled them. A hand was opening someone’s buttocks and slipping in an inquisitive finger. A mouth was closing upon a leaping, charging penis. Another mouth was enclosing a nipple. Faces were covered by breasts or buried in pubic hair. Legs were closing over a burrowing hand. A glistening wet penis would appear and plunge again into flesh. The ivory skin and the gypsy skin were tangled with the man’s muscular body.

Then a strange thing happened. Bijou lay full length under the Basque. Viviane was abandoned for a moment. The Basque was crouching over this woman who bloomed under him like some hothouse flower, odorous, moist, with erotic eyes and wet lips, a full-blown woman, ripe and voluptuous; yet her rubber penis stood erect between them, and the Basque was overtaken with an odd feeling. The penis touched his own and defended the opening of the woman like a lance. He commanded almost angrily, ‘Take it off.’ She slid her hands under her back, unfastened the belt and pulled the rubber penis off. Then he threw himself on her, and she, still holding the penis, held it over the buttocks of the man who was now buried inside of her. When he raised himself to thump into her again, she pushed the rubber penis inside of his buttocks. He leaped like a wild animal and attacked her only more furiously. Each time he raised himself, he found himself attacked from behind. He felt the breasts of the woman crushed beneath him, rolling under his chest, her ivory-skinned belly heaving under his, her hips against his, her moist vagina engulfing him; and each time she plunged the penis into him, he felt not only his turmoil but hers as well. He thought the doubled sensation would drive him mad. Viviane lay there watching them, panting. The foreign man and woman, still clothed, had fallen over her and were rubbing against her frantically, too confused in wild sensations to seek an opening.

The Basque was sliding back and forth. The bed rocked as they rolled, clutching and folding, all curves filled, the machine of Bijou’s voluptuous body yielding honey. Ripples extended from the roots of their hair to the tips of their toes. Their toes sought each other and intertwined. Their tongues projected like pistils. Bijou’s cries now mounted in endless spirals, ah, ah, ah, ah, widening, expanding, becoming more savage. The Basque answered every cry with only a deeper plunge. They were oblivious to the twisted bodies near them; he must now possess her to annihilation – Bijou, this whore, with a thousand tentacles on his body, lying first under him and then over him and seeming to be everywhere inside of him, her fingers everywhere, her breasts in his mouth.

She cried as if he had murdered her. She lay back. The Basque stood up, drunk, burning. His lance still erect, red, inflamed. The disordered clothes of the foreign woman lured him. He could not see her face, which was hidden under her raised skirts. The man was lying over Viviane, belaboring her. The woman was lying over both of them, her legs kicking in the air. The Basque pulled her down by the legs to take her. But she screamed and stood up. She said, ‘I only wanted to look.’ She arranged her clothes. The man abandoned Viviane. Disheveled as they were, they bowed ceremoniously and hurriedly left.

Bijou was sitting up, laughing, her tilted eyes long and narrow. The Basque said, ‘We gave them a good spectacle. Now you get dressed and follow me. I’m going to take you home. I’m going to paint you. I’ll pay Maman whatever she wants.’

And he took her home to live with him.

If Bijou thought that the Basque had taken her home to have her all to himself, she was soon to be disillusioned. The Basque used her as a model almost continuously, but in the evenings he always had his artist friends for dinner, and Bijou was then the cook. After dinner he would make her lie on the bed in the studio while he talked with his friends. He merely kept her at his side and fondled her. His friends could not help watching them. His hand would mechanically circle over her ripe breasts. Bijou would not move. She would fall into a languid pose. The Basque would touch the material of her dress as if it were her skin. Her dresses always molded her body tightly. His hand would appraise and pat and caress, then circle over her belly, then suddenly tickle her to make her squirm. He would open her dress, take out one breast and say to his friends, ‘Did you ever see such a breast? Look!’ They looked. One was smoking, one was sketching Bijou, the other talking; but they looked. Against the black dress the breast, so perfect in its contours, had the color of old ivory marble. The Basque pinched the nipples, which reddened.

Then he would close the dress again. He would feel along the legs until he touched the prominence of the garters. ‘Isn’t it too tight for you? Let’s see. Has it left a mark?’ He would lift the skirt and carefully remove the garter. As Bijou lifted her leg to him the men could see the smooth gleaming lines of her thighs above the stocking. Then she covered herself again and the Basque would continue to fondle her. Bijou’s eyes would blur as if she were drunk. But because she was now like the Basque’s wife and in the company of the Basque’s friends, each time he exposed her she fought to cover herself again, hiding away each new secret in the black folds of her dress.

She stretched her legs. She kicked off her shoes. The erotic light that shone from her eyes, a light that her heavy eyelashes could not shade sufficiently, traversed the bodies of the men like fire.

On nights like this she knew the Basque was not intent on giving her pleasure but on torturing her. He would not be satisfied until the faces of his friends were altered, decomposed. He would pull the zipper on the side of her dress and slip in his hand. ‘You are not wearing panties today, Bijou.’ They could see his hand under the dress, caressing the belly and descending toward the legs. Then he would stop and withdraw his hand. They watched his hand coming out of the black dress and closing the zipper again.

Once he asked one of the painters for his warm pipe. The man handed it to him. He slipped the pipe up Bijou’s skirt and laid it against her sex. ‘It’s warm,’ he said. ‘Warm and smooth.’ Bijou moved away from the pipe because she did not want them to know that all the Basque’s fondlings had wetted her. But the pipe came out revealing this, as if it had been dipped in peach juice. The Basque handed it back to its owner, who was thus given a little of Bijou’s sexual odor. Bijou was afraid of what the Basque would invent next. She tightened her legs. The Basque was smoking. The three friends sat around the bed, talking disconnectedly as if the gestures which were taking place had nothing to do with their conversation.

One of them was talking about the woman painter who was filling the galleries with giant flowers in rainbow colors. ‘They’re not flowers,’ said the pipe smoker, ‘they’re vulvas. Anyone can see that. It is an obsession with her. She paints a vulva the size of a full-grown woman. At first it looks like petals, the heart of a flower, then one sees the two uneven lips, the fine center line, the wavelike edge of the lips when they are spread open. What kind of a woman can she be, always exhibiting this giant vulva, suggestively vanishing into a tunnel-like repetition, growing from a large one to a smaller, the shadow of it, as if one were actually entering into it. It makes you feel as though you were standing before those sea plants which open only to suck in whatever food they can catch, open with the same wavering edges.’

At this moment the Basque had an idea. He asked Bijou to bring the shaving brush and razor. Bijou obeyed. She was glad for a chance to move about and shake off the erotic lethargy his hands had woven around her. His mind was on something else now. He took the brush and soap from her and began to mix a lather. He placed a new blade in the razor. Then he said to her, ‘Lie on the bed.’

‘What are you going to do?’ she said. ‘I have no hairs on my legs.’

‘I know you haven’t. Show them.’ She extended them. They were indeed so smooth that they looked as if they had been polished. They shone like some pale precious wood, highly burnished, not a hair showing, no veins, no roughness, no scars, no defects. The three men bent over her legs. As she shook them, the Basque caught them against his trousers. Then he raised her skirt while she fought to bring it down.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked again.

He raised her skirt and exposed such a luxuriant tuft of curled hair that the three men whistled. She kept her legs tightly closed, her feet against the Basque’s trousers, where he suddenly felt a swarming sensation, like a hundred ants traveling over his sex.

He asked the three men to hold her. Bijou squirmed at first and then realized it was less dangerous to lie still, for he was carefully shaving her pubic hair, beginning at the edges, where it lay sparse and shining on her velvety belly. The belly came down in a soft curve there. The Basque lathered, then shaved gently, wiping off the hair and soap with a towel. With her legs tightly closed the men could not see anything but the hair, but as the Basque shaved on and reached the center of the triangle, he exposed a mount, a smooth promontory. The feeling of the cold blade there agitated Bijou. She was half-angry, half-stirred, intent on not showing her sex, but the shaving revealed where the smoothness descended into a fine incurving line. It revealed the bud of the opening, the soft folded flesh that enclosed the clitoris, the tip of the more intensely colored lips. She wanted now to move away but she was afraid of being hurt by the blade. The three men held her and bent over her to watch. They thought the Basque would stop there. But he ordered her to part her legs. She shook her feet against him, which only excited him more. He said again, ‘Part your legs. There are some more hairs down there.’ She was forced to open them, and he gently began to shave off the hairs, sparse again, delicately curled, on each side of the vulva.

And now everything was exposed – the long vertically placed mouth, a second mouth, which opened not like the mouth of the face, but which opened only if she chose to push out a little. But Bijou would not push, and they could see just the two lips, closed, barring the way.

The Basque said, ‘Now she looks like the paintings by that woman, doesn’t she?’

But in the paintings, the vulva was open, the lips parted, showing the paler inner layer like the inside of the lips of the mouth. This, Bijou would not show. Once shaved, she had closed her legs again.

The Basque said, ‘I will make you open there.’

He had rinsed the soap off the brush. Now he brushed the vulva lips, up and down, gently. At first, Bijou contracted herself even more. The men’s heads leaned closer. The Basque, holding her legs against his erection, meticulously brushed the vulva and the tip of the clitoris. Then the men saw that Bijou could no longer contract her buttocks and sex, that as the brush moved, her buttocks rolled a little forward, the lips of the vulva parted, at first imperceptibly. The nakedness exposed every nuance of her motion. Now the lips parted and exposed a second aura, of a paler shade, then a third, and now Bijou was pushing, pushing as if she would open. Her belly moved in accord, swelling and falling. The Basque leaned more firmly against her writhing legs.

‘Stop,’ begged Bijou, ‘stop.’ The men could see the moisture oozing from her. Then the Basque stopped, not wanting to give her pleasure, reserving that for himself later.

Bijou was eager to make a distinction between her life in the whorehouse and her life as the companion and model of an artist. The Basque was intent on making only one little distinction, merely in the matter of actual possession. But he liked to expose her and delight his visitors with the sight of her. He made them assist at her bath. They liked to watch how her breasts floated in the water, how the swelling of her belly could make the water heave, how she raised herself to pass soap between her legs. They liked to dry her wet body. But if any of them tried to see Bijou privately, and possess her, then the Basque became a demon and a man to fear.

In revenge for these games, Bijou felt she had a right to go where she wanted. The Basque maintained her in a highly eroticized condition and did not always trouble to satisfy her. Her infidelities started then, but they were done so elusively that the Basque could never catch her. Bijou collected her lovers at the Grande Chaumière, where she posed for the drawing class. On winter days she did not undress quickly and surreptitiously as the other models did, next to the stove near the model’s stand, in view of everybody. Bijou had an art for this.

First she loosened her wild hair, shook it like a mane. Then she unbuttoned her coat. Her hands were slow and caressing. She did not handle herself objectively, but like a woman ascertaining with her hands the exact condition of her body, patting it in gratitude for its perfections. Her perennial black dress clung to her body like a second skin and was filled with mysterious openings. One gesture opened the shoulders and let the dress fall over her breasts but no further. At this point she decided to look at her face mirror and examine her eyelashes. Then she opened the zipper which exposed the ribs, the beginning of the breasts, the beginning of the belly’s curve. All the students were watching her from behind their easels. Even the women rested their eyes on the luxuriant parts of Bijou’s body, which burst from the dress dazzlingly. The flawless skin, the soft contours, the firm flesh fascinated them all. Bijou had a way of shaking herself, as if to loosen her muscles, as the cat does before he leaps. This shake, which ran through her body, gave the breasts an air of being handled with violence. Then she took the dress lightly at the hem and lifted it slowly over her shoulders. When it reached her shoulders, she was always stuck for a moment. Something caught with her long hair. No one helped her. They were all petrified. The body which emerged, hairless, now absolutely naked, as she stood with her legs apart to keep her balance, startled them by the sensuality in every curve, by its richness and femininity. The wide black garters were placed high. She wore black stockings, and, if it was a rainy day, high leather boots, men’s boots. As she struggled with the boots, she was at the mercy of anyone who approached her. The students were sorely tempted. One might pretend to help her, but as he approached her she would kick him, sensing his real intention. She continued to struggle with the entangled dress, shaking herself as if in a spasm of love. Finally, she freed herself, after the students had satisfied their eyes. She freed her rich breasts and tangled hair. Sometimes she was asked to keep her boots on, the heavy boots from which expanded, like a flower, the ivory-colored female body. Then a wind of desire would sweep the entire class.

Once on the stand she became a model, and the students remembered they were artists. If she saw one that she liked, she rested her eyes on him. This was the only time she had to make engagements, for the Basque would be coming to fetch her at the end of the afternoon. The student knew what her look meant: She would accept a drink with him in the café nearby. The initiated knew, too, that this café had two floors. The upper one was occupied by card players in the evening, but was absolutely deserted in the afternoon. Only lovers knew this. The student and Bijou would go there, climb the flight of stairs with the sign marked lavabos, and find themselves in a semi-dark room of mirrors and tables and chairs.

Bijou ordered the waiter to bring them a drink, then she lay back on the leather banquette and relaxed. The young student she had selected was trembling. Emanating from her body was a heat he had never felt before. He fell on her mouth, his fresh skin and beautiful teeth luring her to open fully to his kiss and respond with her tongue. They tussled on the long narrow bench, and he began to feel as much of her body as he could, fearing that at any time she would say, ‘Stop, someone might come up the stairs.’

The mirrors reflected their tussling, the disorder of her dress and her hair. The student’s hands were supple and audacious. He slipped under the table and raised her skirt. Then she did say, ‘Stop, someone might come upstairs.’ He replied, ‘Let them. They won’t see me.’ It is true they could not see him there under the table. She sat forward, resting her face on her cupped hands, as if she were dreaming, and let the young student kneel and bury his head under her skirt.

She became languid and abandoned herself to his kisses and caresses. Where she had felt the Basque’s shaving brush, she now felt the young man’s tongue. She fell forward, overwhelmed with pleasure. Then they heard steps, and the student quickly raised himself and sat next to her. To cover his confusion he kissed her. The waiter found them embracing and left hurriedly after accomplishing his errand. Now Bijou’s hands were burrowing into the young student’s clothes. He was kissing her so furiously that she fell on her side on the bench and he over her. He whispered, ‘Come to my room. Please come to my room. It isn’t far.’

‘I can’t,’ said Bijou. ‘The Basque is coming for me soon.’ Then each took the other’s hand and placed it where it could give the greatest pleasure. Sitting there in front of the drinks as if they were conversing together, they caressed each other. The mirrors revealed them as if they were about to sob, their features constricted, their lips trembling, their eyes batting. From their faces one could follow the movement of their hands. At times the young student looked as if he were being wounded and were gasping for air. Another couple came upstairs while their hands were still at work, and they had to kiss again, like romantic lovers.

The young student, unable to conceal the condition he was in, went off somewhere to calm himself. Bijou returned to the class, her body on fire. When the Basque came for her at closing hour, she was calm again.

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 days.’ 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.

As he stroked her, he said, ‘One day I watched two dogs playing. The one dog was busy eating a bone she had found, and the other took advantage of the situation to approach her from behind. I was fourteen. I felt the wildest excitement from watching them. It was the first sexual scene I witnessed, and I discovered the first sexual excitement in myself. From then on, only a woman leaning over as you are can arouse my desire.’

His hand continued to stroke her. He pressed a little against her and, seeing her pliant, began to move behind her so as to cover her with his body. Bijou was suddenly afraid and sought to escape from his embrace. But the man was powerful. She was already under him, and all he had to do was bend her body over even more. He forced her head and shoulders down on the wall and raised her skirt.

Bijou was again without underclothes. The man gasped. He began to murmur words of desire that soothed her, but at the same time he held her down, entirely at his mercy. She felt him against her back, but he was not taking her. He was merely pressing against her as tightly as he could. She felt the strength of his two legs, and she heard his voice enveloping her, but that was all. Then she felt something soft and warm against her, something that did not penetrate her. In a moment she was covered with warm sperm. The man abandoned her and ran away.

Leila took Bijou horseback riding in the Bois. Leila looked very beautiful on horseback, slim, masculine and haughty. Bijou looked more luxuriant but less poised.

Riding in the Bois was a lovely experience. They passed elegant people, then rode through long stretches of isolated, wooded paths. Every now and then they came across a café, where one could rest and eat.

It was spring. Bijou had taken several riding lessons and was now on her own for the first time. They rode slowly, talking all the while. Then Leila set off at a gallop and Bijou followed. After they had galloped for a time, they slowed down. Their faces were flushed.

Bijou felt a pleasurable irritation between her legs and a warmth over her buttocks. She wondered if Leila felt the same. After another half an hour of riding, her excitation was growing. Her eyes were brilliant, her lips moist. Leila looked at her with admiration.

‘Horseback riding becomes you,’ she said.

Her hand held a whip with regal assurance. Her gloves fitted her long fingers tightly. She wore a man’s shirt and cuff links. Her riding habit showed the shapeliness of her waist and breast and buttocks. Bijou filled her clothes more abundantly. Her breasts were high and pointed provocatively upward. Her hair hung loose in the wind.

But oh, the warmth across her buttocks and between the legs – feeling as if she had been rubbed with alcohol, or with wine, and slightly patted by an experienced masseuse. Each time she rose and fell in the saddle she felt a delicious tingling. Leila liked to ride behind her and watch her figure as it moved on the horse. Not fully trained, Bijou leaned forward in the saddle and showed her buttocks, round and tight in the jodhpurs, and her shapely legs.

The horses were hot and beginning to lather. A strong odor came from them and seeped into the two women’s clothes. Leila’s body seemed to grow lighter. She held her whip nervously. They galloped again, side by side now, with their mouths half-open and the wind on their faces. As her legs gripped the flanks of her horse, Bijou remembered how she had once ridden on the stomach of the Basque. And then she stood up, her feet on his chest and her genitals directly in the line of his vision, and he had maintained her in this position to feast his eyes. Another time he had been on his hands and knees on the floor, and she had ridden on his back and had tried to hurt him with the pressure of her knees on his flanks. Laughing nervously, he had urged her on. Her knees were as strong as those of a man riding a horse, and the Basque had felt such excitement that he had crawled like this all around the room with his penis stretched out.

Now and then Leila’s horse raised his tail in the speed of the gallop, and then swatted himself vigorously, exposing glossy hairs in the sun. When they reached the deepest part of the forest, the women stopped and dismounted. They walked their horses to a mossy corner and sat down to rest. They smoked; Leila had kept her riding whip in her hand.

Bijou said, ‘My buttocks are burning hot from the riding.’

‘Let me see,’ said Leila. ‘For this first time we should not have ridden so much. Let me see how you look.’

Bijou unfastened her belt slowly, unbuttoned the trousers, and pulled them down a little, turning over for Leila to see.

Leila pulled her over her knees and said, ‘Let me see.’ She finished pulling down the trousers to uncover the buttocks completely. She touched Bijou.

‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

‘It does not hurt. It’s just warm, as if it had been toasted.’

Leila’s hand cupped the round buttocks. ‘Poor little things,’ she said. ‘Does it hurt here?’ Her hand went deeper into the trousers, deeper between the legs.

‘It’s warm and burning there,’ said Bijou.

‘Take the trousers off so it will cool,’ said Leila, pulling them down a little further and keeping Bijou over her knees, exposed to the air.

‘What beautiful skin you have, Bijou. It catches the light and shines. Let the air cool you off there.’

She continued to stroke Bijou’s skin between the legs as if she were a kitten. Whenever the trousers threatened to cover all this again, she pulled them back out of the way.

‘It still burns,’ said Bijou, not moving.

‘If it continues to burn then we should try something else,’ said Leila.

‘Do whatever you want to me,’ said Bijou.

Leila lifted up her riding whip and let it fall, not too hard at first.

Bijou said, ‘That makes me warmer still.’

‘I want you warmer, Bijou, I want you hot down there, as warm as you can stand it.’

Bijou did not move. Leila used the whip again, leaving a red mark this time.

Bijou said, ‘It is so warm, Leila.’

‘I want you to burn down there,’ said Leila, ‘until you cannot burn any more, cannot bear any more. Then I’ll kiss it.’

She struck again, and Bijou did not move. She struck a little harder.

Bijou said, ‘It’s so hot there, Leila, kiss it.’

Leila leaned over and gave her one long kiss where the buttocks valleyed into the sexual parts. Then she struck Bijou again. And again. Bijou contracted her buttocks as if they hurt, but she felt a burning pleasure.

‘Strike hard,’ she said to Leila.

Leila obeyed. Then she said, ‘Do you want to do it to me?’

‘Yes,’ said Bijou, rising, but she did not pull up her trousers. She sat on the cool moss, took Leila over her knees, unbuttoned her trousers, and began whipping her gently at first, then harder, until Leila contracted and expanded at each blow. Her buttocks were red and burning hot now.

She said, ‘Let’s take off our clothes and get on the horses together.’

They took off their clothes and both mounted one of the horses. The saddle was warm. They fitted snugly against each other: Leila, behind, put her arms around Bijou’s breasts and kissed her shoulder. They rode a little way in this position, each movement of the horse rubbing the saddle against their genitals. Leila was biting Bijou’s shoulder and Bijou would turn now and then and bite Leila’s nipple. They returned to their moss bed and put on their clothes.

Before Bijou had finished pulling on her trousers, Leila stopped her to kiss her clitoris; but what Bijou felt was her burning buttocks, and she begged Leila to put an end to her irritation.

Leila caressed her buttocks and then used the whip again, used it hard, and Bijou contracted under the blows. Leila spread the buttocks with one hand so that the whip would fall between the buttocks, there in the sensitive opening, and Bijou cried out. Leila struck her there again and again until Bijou was convulsed.

Then Bijou turned and struck Leila hard, angry that she was so aroused and yet unsatisfied, burning and unable to put an end to the sensation. Each time she struck she felt herself palpitating between the legs, as if she were taking Leila, penetrating her. After they were both whipped to redness and fury they fell on each other with hands and tongues until they reached the full effulgence of their pleasure.

It was planned that they would all go together for a picnic: Elena, her lover Pierre, Bijou and the Basque, Leila, and the African.

They set out for a spot outside of Paris. They ate at a restaurant on the Seine. Then, leaving the car in the shade, they set out on foot into the forest. At first they walked in a group, then Elena fell behind with the African. She suddenly decided to climb a tree. The African laughed at her, thinking she could not do it.

But Elena knew how. Very deftly, she put one foot on the first low branch and climbed. The African stood at the foot of the tree and watched her. As he looked up he could see under her skirt. She wore shell-pink underwear, tight-fitting and short, so that most of her legs and thighs showed as she climbed. The African stood there laughing and teasing her, as he began to get an erection.

Elena was sitting quite far up. The African could not reach her, because he was too heavy and big to step on the first branch. All he could do was to sit there and watch her and feel his erection becoming stronger.

He asked, ‘What gift will you make me today?’

‘This,’ said Elena, and threw down some chestnuts.

She sat on a branch swinging her legs.

Then Bijou and the Basque returned to look for her. Bijou, a little jealous when she saw the two men looking up at Elena, threw herself on the grass and said, ‘Something has crawled into my clothes. I’m frightened.’

The two men approached her. She pointed first to her back, and the Basque slipped his hand down her dress. Then she said she felt it along the front, and the African slipped his hand inside of her dress and began to search below the breasts. All at once Bijou felt that something really was crawling along her belly, and this time she began to shake herself and roll herself over the grass.

The two men tried to help her. They lifted her skirt and began to search. She wore satin underclothing that covered her completely. She unhooked one side of her panties for the Basque, who, in everyone’s eyes, had more right to search her secret places. This excited the African. He turned Bijou over rather roughly and began slapping her body, saying, ‘This will kill it, whatever it is.’ The Basque was also feeling Bijou all over.

‘You’ll have to undress,’ he said finally. ‘There is nothing else to do.’

They both helped her to undress, as she lay on the grass. Elena was watching from the tree and feeling warm and tingling, wishing it were being done to her. When Bijou was undressed she searched between her legs, and through the pubic hair, and finding nothing, began to put on her underwear. But the African did not want to see her completely dressed. He picked up some harmless little insect and laid it on Bijou’s body. It crawled along her legs, and Bijou began to roll and try to shake it off, not wanting to touch it with her fingers.

‘Take it off, take it off!’ she cried, rolling her beautiful body on the grass, and offering whatever part the insect was traveling over. But neither man wanted to rescue her. The Basque took a branch and began slapping at the insect. The African took another branch. The blows were not painful, merely tickling and stinging a little.

Then the African remembered Elena and returned to the tree.

‘Come down,’ he said, ‘I will help you. You can put your foot on my shoulder.’

‘I won’t come down,’ said Elena.

The African pleaded. She began to climb down, and when she was about to reach the lowest branch the African gripped her leg and placed it over his shoulder. She slipped then, and fell with her legs around his neck, her sex against his face. The African inhaled her odor in ecstasy and held her in the strong grip of his arms.

Through the dress he could smell and feel her sex, and he maintained her there, as he bit into the clothes and held her legs. She struggled to escape, kicking him and hitting his back.

Then her lover appeared, furious, his hair wild, at seeing her caught like this. In vain she tried to explain that the African had caught her because she had slipped on her way down. He remained angry, with desire for revenge. When he saw the pair on the grass he tried to join them. But the Basque would not let anyone touch Bijou. He continued to hit her with the branches.

As she lay there a big dog appeared through the trees and came up to her. He began to sniff at her, with evident pleasure. Bijou screamed and struggled to raise herself. But the enormous dog had planted himself over her and was trying to insert his nose between her legs.

Then the Basque, a cruel expression in his eyes, made a signal to Elena’s lover. Pierre understood. They held Bijou’s arms and legs still and let the dog sniff his way to the place he wanted to smell. He began to lick the satin chemise with delight, in the very place a man would have liked to lick it.

The Basque unfastened her underwear and let the dog continue to lick her carefully and neatly. His tongue was rough, much rougher than a man’s, and long and strong. He licked and licked with much vigor, and the three men were watching now.

Elena and Leila also felt as if they were being licked by the dog. They were restless. They all watched, wondering if Bijou was feeling any pleasure.

At first she was terrified and struggled violently. Then she grew weary of moving uselessly and hurting her wrists and ankles, held so strongly by the men. The dog was beautiful, with a big tousled head, a clean tongue.

The sun fell on Bijou’s pubic hair, which looked like brocade. Her sex was glistening wet, but no one knew whether it was from the dog’s tongue or her pleasure. When her resistance began to die down, the Basque got jealous, kicked off the dog and freed her.

There came a time when the Basque tired of Bijou and abandoned her. Bijou was so accustomed to his fantasies and cruel games, particularly the way he always managed to have her bound and helpless while all kinds of things were done to her, that for months she could not enjoy her newfound liberty or have a relationship with any other man. She could not enjoy women either.

She tried to pose but did not like exposing her body any longer, or being watched and desired by the students. She wandered off by herself all day, once again walking the streets.

The Basque, on the other hand, returned to the pursuit of his former obsession.

Born into a well-to-do family, he was seventeen when his family took a French governess for his younger sister. This woman was short, plump, and always coquettishly dressed. She wore little patent leather boots and sheer black stockings. Her foot was small and extremely arched and pointed.

The Basque was a handsome boy and the French governess took notice of him. They and the younger sister would go on walks together. Under the eyes of the sister very little could take place between them, except long searching glances. The governess had a small mole at the corner of her mouth. The Basque was fascinated with it. One day he complimented her on it.

She answered: ‘I have another where you would never imagine one to be, and where you will never see it.’

The boy tried to imagine where the other mole was placed. He tried to picture the French governess naked. Where was the mole? He had seen only pictures of naked women. He had a postcard showing a dancer with a short feathery skirt. When he breathed on it, the skirt raised itself and the woman stood exposed. One of her legs was in the air, like a ballet dancer’s, and the Basque could see how she was made.

As soon as he got home that day he took out this postcard and breathed on it. He imagined he was seeing the body of the governess, her plump, full breast. Then with a pencil he drew a tiny mole between the legs. By then he was thoroughly aroused and wanted to see the governess naked at all cost. But in the midst of the Basque’s large family, they had to be cautious. There was always someone on the stairs, someone in every room.

The next day during their walk she gave him a handkerchief. He went to his room, threw himself on the bed and covered his mouth with the handkerchief. He could smell the odor of her body on it. She had been holding it in her hand on a hot day and it had received some of her perspiration. The odor was so vivid and affected him so much that for the second time he knew what it was to feel a turmoil between his legs. He saw that he had an erection, which until now had happened only in dreams.

The next day she gave him something wrapped up in paper. He slipped it in his pocket and after their walk went straight to his room, where he opened the package. It contained flesh-tinted panties, with lace edging. She had worn them. They, too, smelled of her body. The boy buried his face in them and experienced the wildest pleasure. He imagined himself taking the panties off her body. The feeling was so vivid that he had an erection. He began to touch himself as he continued to kiss the panties. Then he rubbed his penis with them. The touch of the silk entranced him. It seemed to him that he was touching her flesh, perhaps the very place where he imagined she had the little mole. Suddenly he had an ejaculation, his first, in a spasm of joy that sent him rolling over the bed.

The next day she gave him another package. It contained a brassière. He repeated the ceremony. He wondered what else she could give him that would stir him to such pleasure.

This time it was a big package. His sister’s curiosity was aroused.

‘It’s only books,’ said the governess, ‘nothing of any interest to you.’

The Basque hurried to his room. He found that she had given him a small black corset with lace edges, and this carried the imprint of her body. The lace was worn from all the times she had pulled at it. The Basque was stirred again. This time he took his clothes off and slipped the corset on himself. He pulled at the lacing as he had seen his mother do. He felt compressed and it hurt him, but he delighted in the pain. He imagined the governess was holding him and tightening her arms around him to the point of suffocating him. As he loosened the lace he imagined himself freeing her body so he could see her naked. Again he grew feverish, and all kinds of images haunted him – the governess’s waist, her hips, her thighs.

At night he concealed all her clothes in his bed with him, and fell asleep on them, burying his sex in them as if it were into her body. He dreamed of her. The tip of his penis was constantly wet. In the morning there were rings under his eyes.

She gave him a pair of her stockings. Then she gave him a pair of her black patent leather boots. He placed the boots on his bed. He lay naked now among all her belongings, struggling to create her presence, yearning for her. The shoes looked so alive. They made it appear that she had entered the room and was walking on his bed. He stood them up between his legs to look at them. It seemed as if she were going to walk on his body with her dainty pointed feet, crush him. The thought aroused him. He began to tremble. He drew the boots nearer to his body. Then he brought one near enough to touch the tip of his penis. It aroused him so violently he had an ejaculation all over the shiny leather.

But this had become a form of torture. He began to write the governess letters, begging her to come to his room at night. She read them with pleasure, right in his presence, her dark eyes glittering, but she would not risk her position.

Then one day she was called home by the illness of her father. The boy never saw her again. He was left with a devouring hunger for her, and her clothes haunted him.

One day he made a package of all the clothing and went to a house of prostitution. He found a woman who was physically similar to the governess. He made her dress in the governess’s clothes. He watched her lace up the corset, which lifted up her breasts and set off her buttocks; watched her button the brassière and slip on the panties. Then he asked her to put on the stockings and the boots.

His excitement was tremendous. He rubbed himself against the woman. He stretched himself at her feet and begged her to touch him with the tip of her boot. She touched his chest first of all, then his belly, then the tip of his penis. This caused him to leap with ardor, and he imagined it was the governess who was touching him.

He kissed the underclothing and tried to possess the girl, but as soon as she opened her legs to him, his desire died, for where was the little mole?