As Claude would say with contempt “I suppose her friends…” A poor woman with no cock. Yet she cried all night that November day. Telling me “there’s no such thing as love.” I answered “of course there is.” She said “sure, for others, maybe, that could be, but not for me. I wanted to believe in it. I believed in it with you. I was wrong. Wrong again. There’s such a thing for others, not for me. You, you’ve felt it, maybe, with Claude.” Return, I went back. When I’m in Italy, I miss France. When I’m in France, it’s Italy I miss. The face of a woman you’re trying to force to leave you is beautiful. Her mouth all small, her eyes that won’t let go of yours, her arms open wide. I might never have known this. If I’d held on to my disgust for other women. There was a couple, two men, on the café terrace in January. It was one of the rare days when Marie and I were getting along well. She had just said to me “I know him, I see him on Avenue Saint-Lazare, he looks sad.” I said “well, sure, he’s homosexual,” but as a joke, of course! She didn’t like it. After that it was my rants on the telephone. Which she didn’t like. Claude arrived at the same café with Léonore and a girl, about twenty, who seemed to be his mistress. The brunette from Rue Saint-Guilhem, she’d seen her one day and then told me “she’s not worth your little finger.” One night I had a dream. A record of Mireille Darc was playing. She was singing the Francis Lemarque song, À Paris, in her insufferable voice. Marie wasn’t paying attention. Even though this song, this song… I woke up and she called me “sweetheart.” I wrote down the dream in a little notebook, on the mantelpiece. “Did you sleep well, my love?” Yes, my love. “What time is it?” Seven thirty. “Do you like waking up next to me?” Yes, my love. “I’m going to buy you a miner’s hat with a little light on the front so you can write things down at night.” I had gotten up and opened the shutters, I wanted to see her face. One day, just like that, I was ready to buy a house with her. With a large terrace and a garden would be ideal. To go out, to come and go, inside and outside. I’d do this, I’d do that. I didn’t want to stop. The test was responding! I love seeing you, I love seeing you walk in the door. I love who you are. I love your hair, your eyes, your sunglasses, your clothes, your nose, your mouth, your waist. I dream: We have a house. We share it. We both love it. We choose things we love. Léonore is there. No one can find anything to criticize. You love what I write. You love it a lot. You go to Paris with me. We love each other. We feel strong together. With Léonore, too. Pitou my heart watches over her. Pitou my heart was her dog’s nickname. She would laugh, she’d laugh briefly, “in eight days, you might say the opposite.” I believed everything I said. I would have been ready to move into a house with her on a day like the one with the miner’s hat. With the little light, to write things down at night, ideas and dreams I had. A two-story house, her with a garden below. Me with Léonore above. There was also: “You just left, it’s nine twenty. It’s ridiculous to love your eyes the way I love them, to love your hands, your palms and the backs of your hands, your body, its softness, its slenderness, your hair and your neck with your golden necklace. You have to burn this letter. It’s silly. I love you. Christine.” In the beginning, there was the thrill, but it was always followed by disgust, we got dressed again. Then one night she said to me, “this is the first time I’m not afraid of being deceived.” And Claude, the next day, “it’s crazy how you can be so completely in someone else’s life and then it all disappears.” I couldn’t work. I called Marie to say, I called her again to say “give me an idea…” There were patients in the waiting room, she was in a hurry. “Give me an idea, I’m not going to hang up until you give me one. Give me one, please, I’m blocked. —Talk about the fact that I have no cock, which drives me to despair everyday. —Everyday? —Everyday a bit more.” Thank you for the flowers, they wilted, I threw them away. Irises don’t last long. I called Marie to say “do you remember that in November I was a hair’s breadth away from buying a two-story house with you?” It was late, I had to hang up. Before, when I called her, she would say before going to sleep, “I kiss you very very very,” “I kiss you very very very and all over.” Muzil coughed like crazy. In the beginning I’d say to myself “the incisions for cloning will be unpleasant.” Muzil, Misty, Yassou, she has turtles as well, and fish, but Baya eats their food, Pitou, my heart. She’s such a glutton. “I love women,” how many times did we hear that? Saying “I love women” when you’re a man is easy. “I love animals” is easy for a human. Muzil told me how completely the body, once it’s delivered into the web of medical treatment, loses all identity, is bled dry of all history and dignity. Bénédicte writes me “maybe you don’t show the reader the door, maybe you don’t leave him on the doorstep, and maybe I simply haven’t known how to recognize the light in your books.” I liked the position with me lying on top of her. It worked well, it was like with a man. We both liked it. I remember once, I’d barely recovered, barely caught my breath, hadn’t had a chance to rest, she wanted to make me come again. My body was drained. It needed time to recharge, like a hand-held phone. It has to sit in the base for a while without being removed. Drained, no feeling in my breasts. She was licking me, even though that position… She was rushing, I’d barely rested, barely caught my breath, I ran through a few possible fantasies, none of them worked, like the faxes to Jean-Marc, I burned through them. One after the other. Exhausted. Not a single one worked. None fit. Not one, there are days when. I finally said “stop.” For the first time, we were confronted with failure. I couldn’t go to sleep on that note. I placed her fingers on me. “You don’t like settling for failure, do you?” I looked at the curtain covering the window. Claude and I chose the fabric together. We chose everything together, we were “the lovebirds.”