* * *
In the water, her back to me, she leaned her long brown body against mine. Her short, thick hair tickled my nostrils; I patiently caressed her arms, her belly, the tops of her breasts floating on the surface of the slightly greenish bathwater. A number of little scars decorated her dusky skin, rather thick, the bumps long or short depending on the place, I counted three on her left shoulder, one on her groin, a large one on her ribs, just beneath the right breast, another forked one at the angle of her jaw. Abrupt knocks sounded on the door to the room. The girl turned round in a loud splash, placed a quick kiss on my lips, and leapt out of the bathtub, slipping her streaming body into a terrycloth bathrobe before going to the door. I relaxed in the water, my face scarcely showing above the surface. A powerful feeling of plenitude filled my body, but an almost unsettling plenitude, impossible to grasp or possess, which left something like a sensation of emptiness behind it. Some noises, stifled by the water covering my ears, reached me indistinctly. I got out of the bath, dried myself quickly, pulled on the other bathrobe hanging there and, without taking the trouble to close it, went back into the bedroom. Kneeling once again on the golden bedspread, the girl was contemplating a large tray on which were lined up dishes in lacquered wood, covered with raw fish and pickled vegetables. Two golden beers frothed in tapered glasses. I joined her and began eating without a word. Aside from the sound of the chopsticks everything was quiet; behind the shutters, where there must have been a street or a courtyard, there was not a sound; a lone lamp standing by the bedside lit us with its yellowish halo, and I could distinctly make out our reflections in the windowpanes, two slightly blurred silhouettes, draped in white, which stood out from the field of green grasses of the bedspread. From time to time one of us offered a piece of fish to the other, who snapped it up with a surprised smile; when I kissed her, her lips had the bitter taste of beer. It was very dry in this room, I could feel my skin pulling at my hands and face; the raw fish as well made me thirsty, I quickly finished my beer. The girl got up, took my empty glass, and went into the bathroom. I finished the last little vegetables and piled the plates on the tray to go put it in a corner, on the floor. The girl still hadn’t come out and I got rid of my bathrobe to stretch out on the bedspread, on my belly, my head resting on my crossed arms. Turning my face I could glimpse the twin moon of my buttocks reflected in one of the windowpanes, white and slightly rounded. When the young woman reappeared she was naked too, splendid, her bare feet advanced on the blood-red carpet as she held the glass filled with water in front of her, her hips caught in a leather harness that held a long black phallus strapped to her pubis. I took the glass from her hand and drank. She moved behind me, without thinking I spread my legs and pointed my toes, her fingers, smeared with a liquid, slippery substance, threaded their way between my buttocks to massage the areola of my anus, my hips rose, she lay on top of me and I heard her husky breathing whistling in my ear as her hand played with my hair, pressing my head onto the bedspread. The object attached to her hips beat against my ass, heavy, hard, and silky. I arched my hips a little and it began to move between my buttocks, with a very deliberate slowness, then it withdrew and the tip caught, I slipped a hand behind my back to guide it and the girl leaned in with all her weight: then my ass opened all of a sudden and she entered me, her hands gripping my buttocks to spread them more and her head weighing on my neck. A cold, biting flame filled my pelvis, I hollowed out my back some more and leaned with both hands against the headboard, her hips were beating against mine now in large long strokes that kept spreading further through my body horribly sweet sensations, my legs twisted, sought a support, slid, her firm, soft thighs pressed on mine, her hands, now, rose up and pressed with all their weight on my head. Pleasure invaded my neck and shoulders, a long, diffuse, electric stream, I arched my back convulsively, my member, limp and almost forgotten, beat against the embroidery of the cloth to the rhythm of her moving hips; supporting myself on one shoulder, I pulled back a little, turned onto my side and opened my eyes to look beneath her arm. Her brown thigh, marked with several scars, entwined my own, much paler and covered with curly hairs; the leather straps which held in place the object with which she was working my hips shaped small bulges in her flesh: and in the window, beyond her long slim back, I could see her ass, two golden orbs pushed upwards by the straps beneath them, overlapping mine on the green and golden field of the bedspread. All of a sudden, the light went out, erasing the image in the window and plunging the room into darkness; even with my eyes wide open I could see nothing, the electricity must have gone out, I was coming now with all my muscles and she, heaving against me and panting, must have been coming too, finally she collapsed on my back, her pelvis tense against my buttocks, the immobile phallus planted inside me, I slipped one hand behind my head to rub her hair, she bit my neck and I still spasmodically moved my hips. The blade of pleasure, long successive waves, kept unfurling throughout my abandoned body. I wanted to pull myself together, perhaps withdraw to take her in turn, but a great somnolence invaded me, I yawned, my hands moved with more and more languor and lightness, I ran my fingers again over my back, my hips and her thighs and I fell asleep thus, her member still inside me and her body stretched out on mine, melting with pleasure.
* * *
The return of the electricity woke me up. The girl had rolled onto her side, her legs intertwined with mine, the phallus still lodged inside me. Spreading apart my buttocks, I slowly pulled away, it was dry now and it stuck a little; finally the object came out and fell onto the bedspread with a small dull thud. My mouth was dry and pasty; I carefully disentangled myself from her legs, rose up and headed to the bathroom. The white light of the neon dazzled me, I turned it off right away; still blinking, I leaned over the sink to drink greedily from the faucet. When I came back out I contemplated the young woman: she was still sleeping, stretched out on her side, the phallus almost completely hidden in the shadow of her curved body; behind her, the yellow light of the bedside lamp illuminated her naked, brown back, the long green grasses of the bedspread crumpled beneath her body, the gilt vines of the wallpaper. I sat next to her and lightly ran the flat of my fingertips over the nape of her neck, her spine, her buttocks. She shivered but didn’t wake up. Her skin, almost rough, grated beneath my fingers; between her legs, the secretions had dried on the black phallus, reflecting light in places. I should turn down the heat, I thought confusedly. But I could see no thermostat, no temperature control. I got back up, filled two glasses of water, and placed them on the radiator; then I turned off the light and lay down again alongside the girl, on my belly, one hand on the small of her back. Sounds of water emanating from the bathroom woke me completely. The light was on again and I was alone on the bed. I got up, knocked on the door to the bathroom, and went in without waiting for a reply: the girl, sitting naked on the toilet, her elbows resting on her knees, the phallus still fixed to her belly, was peeing. I bent over to kiss her hair. She wiped herself and got up in a swift movement that made her artificial member bounce, before pressing the flush handle. “Aren’t you going to take that off?” I asked her as she rinsed her face and ran wet fingers through her hair. “Why? I like having a cock. I think I’ll wear it all day.” She laughed and I went out to stretch out on the bed. It was still just as hot and dry and I was thirsty again. She came out behind me as the little musical tone of a cellphone rang out. “Oh! I have to go,” she said cheerfully as she examined the screen. Leaning on one elbow, I watched her get dressed. She struggled with her jeans, already almost too narrow for her hips, trying to fit the object lying next to her thigh into them. Finally she managed to zipper them and buckle her belt. Then she put on her bra and her blouse, before tapping the bulge in her jeans: “Nice package, don’t you think?” I reached out and stroked it without a word. She laughed, shook her head, and went out. I got up, showered quickly, and got dressed. The smooth, silky material of the tracksuit glided pleasantly on my skin. At the entrance to the bedroom, I hesitated: there were two doors, one opposite the other, something I hadn’t noticed before. Which one had the girl taken? It didn’t matter. I opened one at random and crossed the threshold with a confident step; already my feet, in sneakers light as feathers, found their short stride again; I brought my elbows in against my ribs and concentrated on my breathing, inhaling through my mouth to the rhythm of my steps. The air here was less dry than in the bedroom, sweat soon beaded on my face, soaked my armpits, the hollow of my back; I followed the curve of the grey hallway, advancing almost noiselessly. It was dark, but that didn’t bother me too much, I could still see well enough; I could not, however, make out any source of light, the walls seemed smooth, identical, indistinct, I wondered vaguely where the lighting could be coming from, while still aware that it was of no importance. Here and there, a darker area seemed to open onto a cubbyhole, or even a tunnel, I went on my way without slowing down, following the curve that continued on, and like a child I held out my hand and let my fingers trail along the wall until they came up against an object that I hadn’t seen. It was a doorknob, I pushed it and opened the door. Right away, I knew that this space suited me. It was a vast and very bright studio, its walls covered with books; in the back a long bay window overlooked piles of little buildings rising in levels in front of a grey, luminous strip of sea. I came over and rested my hands on the long table in front of the window as I examined the city, contemplating the changing colors of the façades as the light faded. Then I turned around. A disk case was lying on a stereo, old recordings of Mozart piano concertos; I put one on at random and strolled through the studio listening to the first notes, letting my gaze wander absent-mindedly over the bindings of the books and the many engravings and reproductions hanging between the bookcases. The cheerful, lucid notes of the music danced through the room, filling me with a profound feeling of serene lightness. I poured myself a glass of schnapps, lit a little cigar found in a box, and burrowed into a black leather sofa to leaf through an album lying there, on a coffee table. In oblong format, bound in white cloth, it showed a series of photographs of naked men and women, executing various movements broken down into stop motion sequences by a multiple camera setup. I paused at one plate: a man, with a powerful movement, was drawing another man around his body to throw him on the ground, face-down, before falling on top of him to pin him there, his head seemingly confused with that of his opponent as the twin white globes of the buttocks and the vigorous lines of the thighs overlapped each other, a sinuous heap of forms, forever fixed in place by the successive shutter releases.