The Juliette Society

5

Marcus has set, as homework, a screening of Belle de Jour, the Louis Buñuel movie that stars Catherine Deneuve.

I’ve never seen the movie before. I know nothing about it. I have no idea what to expect.

I sit down in the theater on campus and I’m not alone but, when the lights go down and the darkness closes in around me, I might as well be. This is how I like to experience movies. In a theater, in the dark, as a one-on-one communion between me and the screen. As something approaching the quiet contemplation you feel when standing in front of a great painting that awes you into silence.

I sit down to watch a movie and expect to be transported on a flight from reality into another world. I expect, at the very least, to be entertained, maybe enthralled, even appalled. The last thing I expect is to see myself up on the screen.

Bear with me, I’m not completely deluded. I know I’m not the star of this movie, even if I do share a name with the lead. I’m not even a supporting character. But somehow, some way, something about it connects with me deeply. Even if I only have one thing in common with its protagonist, a frigid, upper middle class, French housewife who harbors secret masochistic desires about sex.

Her name is Séverine. Latin for ‘stern’. Imagine going through life, your entire life, and having people decide they don’t like you even before they’ve met you. Just from hearing your name. Séverine. Severe. Stern.

Imagine lumbering a kid from birth with a name like that. You might as well call it, ‘No fun’.

No fun at all.

And it’s not as if that name doesn’t suit Catherine Deneuve’s character in Buñuel’s movie. In fact, there’s isn’t another name that suits her better because, to be honest, she isn’t a whole lot of fun. She’s icy-cold and dispossessed of every quality that could make you like her, stripped of almost everything that makes her human. Everything except her morbid fantasies of humiliation and punishment. Because you’re not meant to like her or even identify with her.

And yet, somehow I do.

Séverine. No fun. No fun at all. Married a year and she’s never let her husband fuck her. Married a year and she won’t even let him sleep in the same bed. Married a year and he hasn’t even seen her naked. Her husband; devoted, protective, dependable and so, so understanding.

Séverine. A virgin in reality, but a whore in her imagination. And it’s her imagination that leads her astray.

Remember. Plot, always subservient to character.

And Séverine, always in thrall to her desires, never in control of them, floats through the movie in a trance. Floats through her life like it’s a movie. Until a friend of her husband’s, an older man, devious and sleazy, who seems to see right through her, implants the idea in Séverine’s head that there is a place where women like her – repressed, immoral, insatiable – can fulfill their fantasies in private and maintain their reputation in public.

A brothel.

He even gives her the address. And so she visits the brothel and she’s given a new name, to disguise her identity. Something that sounds exotic. Not Séverine. Something that will entice the clients.

Belle de jour.

A cute French phrase that sounds like nonsense in English any way you cut it, which is probably why no one bothered to translate the title of the movie for the foreign market.

Belle de jour.

Literally, beauty of the day. Or, today’s beauty.

Makes me think, ‘today’s special’.

Maybe that’s how Buñuel meant it too. The woman who has everything and wants for nothing, reduced to the dish of the day on the menu in a whorehouse. Buñuel’s little joke. His little humiliation. She’s always dish of the day, every single day. The special that never ever changes, that’s not really special at all.

The only thing special about her is her beauty which, although divine and transcendent, is ultimately worthless, because the only purpose it serves is to ease her passage into whoredom, to cheapen her.

She’s liver and mashed potatoes. Every single day.

And pretty soon, in that brothel, marked-down and cheapened, Séverine submits to her desires, every single one of them; her dreams now superimposed on reality. And pretty soon, her dreams supersede her reality.

And that’s where I come in.

I’m sitting in the theater watching the movie, and I recognize myself.

I have no ambition to be a whore. Not even in secret. That’s not what I meant.

What I mean is that I recognize something inside Séverine, as unlikely as it seems, that’s also inside me; as far apart as we are in background, temperament and character, there is something that connects us.

I’m not a prude. And I’m not a masochist – at least, I don’t think I am – but Séverine’s fantasies touch a nerve. Her reality, less so.

I’m sitting in the theater and my imagination takes over. I’m watching the movie and filling in the gaps. And pretty soon I’ve lost track of where the film ends and my fantasies begin.

When the movie’s over and I emerge from the dark into the mid-afternoon sun, I feel like I’m walking a high-wire. Teetering on the edge of a precipice, struggling to maintain my balance. I’m shaking inside. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’m so confused. I can’t work out whether I’ve been overcome by delirium or have given in to mania. I only know that I don’t want the fantasy to stop. I’ve never imagined myself being pleasured in this way, and now that I have, I want more.

I walk home in a trance, navigating on autopilot, running the scenes back in my mind. I forget where I am and I realize I’m back in the movie.

I’m underneath the sweeping branches of a pine, held there against my will by the man I adore. Restrained, beaten and brutalized on his order by two savage men, while he watches, indifferent to my suffering.

My hands are hitched together with coarse rope and hauled so high above my head that the muscles in my arms stretch and burn. My feet claw at the ground as it swings beneath me. My dress has been ripped at the seams and sags from my waist like a wilted petal. My bra hangs loose from my shoulders, the underwire clipping against the nipples and hardening them.

Leather whips bear down upon my back, biting into the flesh, one and then another in quick succession, beating out a vicious rhythm that holds me in its thrall. I hear the crack of the lash, and then… the sting. The crack. And then the sting. As inevitably as lightning follows thunder, so pleasure follows pain. The intensity ratchets up and up and up with every stroke, until both, the pleasure and the pain, are all too much to bear. Adrenaline courses through my body.

I turn a corner.

I’m not even halfway home and I’m horny as hell.

I turn another corner and I’m back in the movie, now in the brothel, preparing to be inculcated into the pleasures of criminal desire by a ruffian with a cane and gold teeth who carries himself with a rough, primal swagger.

If clothes make the man, then this man is a study in contradictions. He has fashionable patent leather Chelsea boots worn down to a dull luster and socks that are threadbare, with large, ragged holes where the heels once were. A metal signet ring inset with a huge, finely cut diamond. And those gold teeth that gleam when he bares them and push his top lip up into a sneer. His hair, his leather overcoat, his trousers, his shoes, all black as night. Everything else, mismatched and fanciful. A purple waistcoat and a loud and lurid patterned tie.

When he takes off his shirt – a white shirt, the only thing pure and uncomplicated about him – there is a lean, hairless torso, as delicately contoured as a marble statue. Skin that’s pale and unblemished; until he turns around.

On his back is a large scar that curves underneath the shoulder blade; a ridged crescent of damaged tissue, even paler than the rest of his skin, although that doesn’t seem possible; an intimation of terrible violence.

He looks at me with an affected aristocratic aloofness. I look at him and I think of Marcus; but younger and rougher and more disheveled; dangerous and unpredictable where Marcus is soft and diffident. I look at him and I think of how I want Marcus to be, of how I want him to treat me.

With disdain.

I start to take off my underwear. He looks me hard in the eyes and says, ‘Leave your stockings on.’

An order, not a request. He unzips his trousers, still looking at me, and adds, ‘A girl tried to strangle me once.’

I wonder if maybe this is a warning. I wonder if this is what he intends for me. A chill runs through me.

But it’s too late for second thoughts because he’s already taking off his underpants, which are white like his shirt and his naked torso.

I lie on the bed, on my front, and turn my head to look at him over my shoulder.

I think of Marcus and his cock, snaking along the leg of his too-tight brown suit pants. And then I don’t have to wonder any more because it’s there, right in front of me, long and thin and majestic, curling upwards in a perfect curve; like a crescent moon at the end of its cycle, like the scar on his back and the blade of the dagger that made it. And he crawls up onto the bed, his long limbs craning over me, a spider closing in on the fly. He kicks my legs apart and lowers himself down between them. I can feel the swell of his cock resting against the crack of my ass. I can feel him raise himself up in a sawing motion.

His hand is flat against my neck, his fingers curving around it, the span between them so broad that he can almost reach all the way around. He squeezes slightly and the pressure feels so good. I wait for him to slide it down and hit all the pressure points on my neck and along my back. Instead, he tightens his grip and puts all his weight behind it, slamming my head down into the mattress.

I cry out, more in surprise than in pain.

I feel him pry open the cheeks of my ass with his one free hand and I prepare to cry out again, this time in pain more than in surprise. Because I know what’s coming. And it’s too late for second thoughts.

Then there’s a horn blaring in my ear. The squeal of brakes from a cab that’s come to a hard stop not six inches from my body, which is not two paces from the curb, where I’ve stepped off the sidewalk and into the street on a green light.

I’m shaking. Shocked out of my stupor. Thrown out of the screen and back to reality. And I do know the difference. I do know which is worse and which will cause more damage – being fucked up the ass by a thug, or fucked up the ass by a yellow cab.

I turn the key to the apartment, and the door’s not even halfway open before I call out,

‘Jack… Jack?’

He steps out into the hallway and I don’t say, ‘I love you. I missed you. How was your day?’

I say, ‘I want to fuck you so bad.’

And I’m on him in an instant and have him pinned up against the wall before he even knows what’s hit him. My mouth on his, kissing him hard and deep before he can say a word, before he can even catch a breath.

My hands are up inside his shirt and all over his chest. Running my nails down his torso. Pinching the nipples till he moans. And I don’t hear it, I feel it; the gasp of a low moan that escapes from his mouth into mine.

I’m a woman possessed. And all I can think about is holding his cock inside me and never letting go. I want to be controlled by his cock. I’ve never felt this way, I couldn’t be more certain, and I’ve never been this turned on.

I reach down and feel his crotch. And this is what I love about Jack. I never have to wait for him to get hard. Never have to waste time teasing a limp cock into action. As soon as I make a move, it’s always there, ready and waiting and willing, as if through auto-suggestion, and so fucking hard.

I yank off his trousers and underwear in one frenzied motion. I have it in my hand now and I disengage my mouth from his, but only so I can look him in the eyes and say, ‘I want your cock. I want to fuck your cock with my mouth.’

And I’m not seeking his permission.

I’m not asking, I’m telling.

I’m not begging, I’m taking.

And he doesn’t have a choice.

I slide down his body, still holding him, only letting go to change my grip. I’m on my knees in front of him and I pull his penis down firmly, like a lever, so it’s at a perfect right angle with his body, and perfectly level with my mouth.

I sink the head into my mouth, ever so slowly; the whole head, closing my lips around it, tight. I withdraw and tease him with my tongue. Then take him into me again, a little deeper this time, advancing along the shaft. Then withdraw. Teasing.

And I tell him what he wants to hear.

I tell him, ‘Your hard cock feels so good in my tight little mouth. It tastes so good. It feels so fucking good, doesn’t it?’

And I don’t wait for an answer.

I push his cock up flat against his belly and hold it in place as I lick from the bottom of his balls, all around the sack, flicking his balls with my tongue, sucking one and then the other, then lapping along the shaft, like a brush stroking a canvas, until I get to the tip. And I lick it, and spit on it and pump it with my hand, looking him right in the eye. I can see that he’s overwhelmed and I know that he’s at my mercy.

I open my mouth, wide, so I can take him all the way, drawing in enough air to fill my lungs, as if I’m about to dive underwater, drawing his length into me slowly, curling my tongue around to cradle the head, stroking the underside of his cock as it slips inside. As I do, I can feel myself getting wet.

I hold him there until I feel him quiver, and then withdraw. He’s still connected to me by a thick pearly string of sputum that hangs between us and coats the tip of his cock like a snow-capped mountain. I look at the spit that joins us and imagine my pussy opening like a flower and the sticky white juices adhering to the lips.

I come up gasping for air and pump my hand hard and fast along his shaft, sheathing it with a film of spit while I catch my breath, and I prepare to go under again.

I bob forward in rapid little movements, open my throat and spear myself on his cock, feeling his engorged fleshy head press against the back of my throat, his cock filling my mouth. I imagine it deep inside my hot wet pussy and I can feel that my panties are soaked all the way through.

I feel his hands slip through my hair and I wait for him to clasp the back of my skull, holding it steady as he thrusts – one short, sharp, final thrust – deeper into me. This is what I want to happen. This is what I imagine ahead of time.

I’ll hear him groan as he unloads into the back of my throat. And he’ll be at a loss for words.

Except, ‘fuck’.

And, ‘yeah’.

I’ll take hit after hit after hit, hot and thick and sugar-sweet, sliding down my throat. And his come, it won’t stop. I’ll feel like I’m going to drown.

This is how I have it all planned out in my head. But that’s not what happens.

He slips his hands through my hair but he doesn’t push into me. He pushes me off him. It’s as if I’ve been woken abruptly. Jerked out of a dream.

I look up at him and say, ‘what’s wrong?’

I’m confused and hurt. I don’t try to hide it. He can hear it in my voice.

‘What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?’ he says.

Throwing it back in my face like that just makes it worse.

‘What’s gotten into you, Catherine?’

He only calls me Catherine when he’s really pissed.

Nothing’s gotten into me. Nothing that all. That’s the problem. Can’t he see how horny I am?

He’s made me feel stupid and cheap.

‘I’m working,’ he pleads. ‘I don’t have time for this now. Maybe later.’

And when he says that I know there won’t be a later. I know he’ll work late and keep me waiting.

And that’s exactly what happens. I’m in bed, ready and waiting and willing. And I can hear him outside but he doesn’t come in. And I’m left with only my hand for company, my fantasies for comfort, and all these strange images from the movie swirling around in my head.

I am tied to a tree that’s sheathed in ivy. My arms are bent back around the trunk and held in place by a thick coarse rope that’s crisscrossed over my body and binds me tight.

I’m in the middle of a wood but my head is filled with the sound of the ocean. It’s broad daylight. My body is bathed in the warmth of the sun. I hear only the sound of the crickets that sing in the night.

There is blood at my temple. But no wound. It has streamed down my cheek like a drip of paint, oily and thick. Like a tear that shows the color of pain.

And I don’t feel afraid because my lover is with me, standing in front of me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and I feel comforted. He caresses my body with his eyes and I feel desired. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t make a sound, but I am bathed in the warmth of his love. He kisses me tenderly, with lips so soft. He glances up at the blood, traces a finger through my pain and kisses me again. And his kisses are sweet, but that’s all.