One morning in the spring of 1953, almost all the Paris dailies ran headline stories of the "strange and violent death of Baroness Carla Arvon." It is, of course, part of a newspaper's business to run stories about strange and violent death, and generally all the brutal details are itemized, and blood, rape, murder, catastrophe pour out at us from the unemotional lines of black and white.
In the case of Baroness Arvon, "strange and violent death" remained just that. The nude body of this remarkably beautiful woman had been found in a filthy (but unnamed) hotel in the Paris slum area. The proprietor of the hotel, when questioned by the police, said the woman had rented the room only a few hours before she was discovered dead. She had not filled out registration papers, the proprietor admitted, because she had claimed to be very tired when taking the room and said she would see to all the formalities when she went out for dinner. She never went out to dinner. At midnight, the proprietor knocked at her door and, since there was no answer, turned the knob and found that the door had not been locked from inside. Baroness Arvon lay on the floor, and an alcohol burner still sputtered on the table beside the bed.
I report the story of her death in almost the very words of the newspapers. The rest of the great amount of space devoted to Carla Arvon related the calm, quiet, virtuous events of her life. Born of middle-class parents, she had married at a very young age the formidable Baron Arvon, a man more than thirty years her senior, a man driven by bitterness and hatred because revolution had forced him from his own middle-European country to take up residence in France. Their marriage was a happy one (said the newspapers) but short-lived since the Baroness was made a widow only four years after she had been made a bride. Left with a three-year-old daughter and several billion francs, Carla Arvon spent the second twenty years of her life in nun-like solitude, emerging into society for a rare evening with intimate friends-usually central-European exiles-or, more frequently, for an afternoon devoted to some charitable benefit. Her good works were as great, and as little known, as her superlative beauty. Few indeed (said the newspapers) were those fortunate enough to behold this tall slender woman with ice-blue eyes and ice-blue hair.
In short, nothing in her brief quiet life-curiously enough, she died on her fortieth birthday-would have led anyone to expect her "strange and violent death," although she herself had, in a way, prophesied it. The newspapers reported that several of her intimates had informed the police that during the past year or two Baroness Arvon had often said, but always in jest: "One day, I'll surprise all of you. I know you call me Baroness Nun behind my back"-which, in fact, they did-"but I'm not so sure you always will."
That spring morning in 1933, I was sitting at a cate on Boulevard St. Germain, sipping my coffee and reading, with little interest, the oddly discreet reportage of the Baroness's death. It was not until I'd read the whole length of one column that my eye flicked up to the rather blurry photograph in the middle of the page. I knew the face at once. There was no thrilling, shocking sensation of could it be? or surely it isn't? There was only a moment of terrible and profound grief that I had discovered in this casual, ridiculous way that my long search was over. The image I had carried in my heart, in my mind, in the haunted heat of my loins, had been destroyed in a filthy but unnamed hotel in the Paris slum area. Two decades of memory ended there.
For it was soon after the death of her husband-although I didn't know that he was Baron Arvon-that I meet Carla, ice-eyed, ice-haired Carla, all ice except for the holocaust raging within her. We met by accident, or, to tell the truth, we didn't meet at all: I followed her. She appeared, as I later learned was the only way she could appear, as if from out of nowhere. I turned a street and there she was: only her back at first, but what an incredible back it was. She was made all of one line, one soft curving line that rolled and swelled, spread and narrowed, moved from the curve of her shoulders to the small of her back and there it widened out to a stretch of hips that ran in a perfect curve round the slight swell of her buttocks, these globes that swayed ever so slightly beneath the grip of her all-white summer dress. The dress hung to the middle of her calves, but there the single splendid line of her body reasserted itself in the shape of tanned smooth flesh that blossomed out for a moment as if appealing to a waiting hand and then tapered down to a fine chiseled ankle. Her hair was much longer than most women wore-theirs that year. What would she have done with a mannish cut? She needed it just as it was, lightly waved, softly rippling to her shoulders, incredibly casual despite the strangeness of its color: platinum-silver-blue, like the color of a perfect diamond. Yes, she was all ice like a diamond; but diamonds are born of coal-and coal burns.
For some minutes, I was so caught up in the admiration of her back that I didn't think of increasing my pace. Then, when I decided to catch up with her, she saved me the trouble by turning a corner and sitting down on the terrace of a cafe. It was a large terrace and there was no one else on it, but I was too caught up by the girl to make any pretences. I sat down at the table just beside hers.
It is difficult to describe a beautiful woman, perhaps because beauty exists primarily in harmony. Most women you can describe are only pretty-they have a flaw somewhere. But a beautiful woman, one as beautiful as Carla was, can have no feature better than the next; all features must coordinate. Well, she sat at the next table and her face was expressionless, and she didn't seem to notice me. She was tanned, but still her face was paler than her calves, like a slightly darkened cream, and her long eyelashes curved out black and fine from delicate lids above her eyes-those clear eyes, almost the same color as her hair, which refused to notice me. They stared straight out across the pavement and were made arrogant by the way she kept her chin raised. It was wonderful to see the graceful sweep of that single line again leading from her chin down the length of her straight neck and then outward to form those breasts defying concealment, trying to reveal themselves in every way: I could sense the small warm elasticity of her nipples chafing at the doth of her dress. I wanted to bend over to her and with no more ado than a "Mademoiselle, may I?" pluck the round white softness from her bodice and bring her nipples to my lips.
When the waiter came, she ordered cognac, and so did I.
"On a day like this," I said to her as soon as the waiter had gone, "cognac is the wrong thing to have. It only makes you warmer."
"Is that so?" But she wouldn't look at me.
"Well," I began, wishing I were a brilliant conversationalist. "Well, yes, that's so. Alcohol increases the blood pressure or something and it makes the blood-well, you know. In any case, it makes you warmer."
"Then would you mind telling me why you ordered a cognac?" She looked at me for the first time, her full lips gently parted.
I smiled, but she refused to smile back and merely continued to gaze at me distantly.
"Maybe," I told her, "I want to be warmer."
Not catching any but the most obvious meaning in my statement, she spoke thoughtlessly: "And maybe I do too." She had hardly finished speaking before our conversation took on a new light in her mind and she could not prevent herself from smiling. Then she turned away from me and stared again at the pavement until the waiter brought our drinks. Then I said:
"World you mind if I joined you at your table?"
She sighed deeply, her breasts rising. "I would mind very much. In the first place, I am only very recently a widow. In the second place, even if I didn't think it improper to speak to a strange man, I must confess I have no inclination to."
"Why not?"
"I simply haven't. I find that most men labor under the delusion that they will soon be providing me with a pleasure I find altogether repugnant."
"Most men, you say. But that doesn't mean all men."
"Perhaps not. In all honesty, then, are you going to claim yourself one of the rare men interested in me only as a partner in aimless sociable conversation?"
I hesitated. "In all honesty: no."
"In that case, I think it best to bring our conversation to a close." And she sipped at her cognac.
"By the way, you said a minute ago that most men wanted to provide you with a pleasure you find repugnant. How can a pleasure be repugnant?"
She flushed and stared down at her drink. "I meant that it wasn't a pleasure-I meant that it was their pleasure, not mine. I meant-" She stopped abruptly and I realized she'd begun to cry.
I jumped from my chair and moved to her table.
"Look, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. Please forgive me."
"It's all right," she said, her voice calm but tears still coming into her eyes. "Just give me your handkerchief. Thank you."
"I'm really terribly sorry." Sitting down beside her I put my arm round her. My embrace was almost brotherly and she must have sensed this because, as her eyes slowly dried, I could feel that she was grateful for my comfort. It was this curious reversal in both of us-my fraternal affection and her gratitude-that made me understand it was not so much what I'd said that bothered her, but some deeper problem which, when evoked, could easily bring tears from her.
"If there's anything I can do for you," I said, "I'd like you to know you can count on me. You don't know anything about me, of course, but if you take my word, I'm a trustworthy person and-"
"There's nothing anyone can do," she shook her head. "It's all been done. It's finished. In the past."
I was silent because I knew she would say more. After a moment, she continued: "If only I could talk to someone. I see myself choking with my own misery in all the years ahead, saying nothing."
"You can talk to me. I'm a stranger to you, and I'm even a foreigner in your country."
"You're an American?"
"Yes."
She looked at me suddenly, her blue eyes searching across my face. "Could you meet me tonight?" she asked finally.
"Yes."
"Be here, at this cafe, about midnight."
"I could pick you up somewhere else, if you'd like. I've got a car."
"No, that's impossible. Let's meet here."
She stood up and put a coin on the table.
"Goodbye," she said. "Until tonight." Her voice was husky and thrilling, and in my new role of father-confessor, I tried not to look at her retreating form.
At a quarter to midnight, I was back at that same table. It was a heavy night, warm, damp, with a slice of moon standing like a crescent on the point of the church steeple in the square across the way. I had some misgivings about my rendezvous. Here was a hot wet night, a night when moist flesh ought to be sucking up against other moist flesh, and there was even a bit of moonlight to sift through a bedroom window and glisten on bodies. But this was not for me. I was going to be Mr. Good Samaritan all over the place, listen paternally to the problems of a miserable young girl, and perhaps, at the very most, physical contact would be another fraternal embrace. I oughtn't to bother waiting, I thought But I waited.
By midnight, the cafe had got a bit crowded with people taking a last cool drink after the theater or the movies. There was a great deal of noise, and I knew his wouldn't be the right place for a long solemn talk. Then suddenly, there she was coming across the square as if she'd stepped right out of the darkness.
She was wearing a tight black dress now and it was clamped against all her curves; as she .walked it hugged in against her loins and lay hungrily on the inside swell of her thigh. This dress was cut lower than the white one and, except for a short necklace of what appeared to be diamonds, her flesh swooped unbrokenly halfway down the swell of her breasts.
It was going to be hard for her father-confessor; in fact it was already hard, and warmth tingled along my body. When she approached my table, everyone turned to stare.-
"Let's get away from here," I said.
She nodded, and I stood up, took her arm, and we walked to the corner in silence.
"Look," I told her. "We can go to another cafe if you want. Or else we can just drive around the city. My car's down the street."' '
She hesitated. "I hope I haven't made a mistake."
"What do you mean?"
"Trusting you."
"You're so damn suspicious. You must think I'm quite a man to be able to drive a car and tangle up with you at the same time."
She laughed. That was the first time I'd seen her laugh. It was a good throaty laugh, and I saw her white even teeth and the brief sudden flicker of a pink pointed tongue.
"All right," she said. "We'll take a ride."
For five minutes we drove without exchanging a word. There was almost no traffic and the breeze was wonderful as it fluttered through the window while we sped along.
"Do you want to begin?" I asked. "I'm trying to. It's so difficult when one has lived in silence for so long."
"So long."
"More chan four years. That's a long time. And I was such a talkative great girL My boy friends used to say the only way to shut up was by putting-" She broVe off. '"Goon."
"Yes, I must say it all. AH, from the beginning. My boy friends"-she took a deep breath-"used to say the only way to shut me up was putting a tongue or a penis in my mouth. That would keep me quiet all right. I loved things like that in those days. I loved to feel a man's warm body against me and to have his face rub against mine and then to feel dry lips moving over me, pushing to my lips and then a sweet wet tongue. I liked the other thing even better, taking it in my mouth and coaxing at it, smothering it with the warmth of tongue and throat. My whole body would be pulling at it, calling its vital life to flow into my mouth. But I never did anything more-I mean, I didn't make love until I was married.
"I was raised in a town in the center of France. My parents were fairly well-off, but they were very ambitious. You know, if I had a rich boy friend, I knew it was perfectly all right to bring him to my house at night and we could do what we wanted-and my parents knew about it. But if the boy was poor, and they found I was seeing him, they'd call me a whore, a no-good. For me, a boy was a boy; it wasn't his money I liked in my mouth. When I was sixteen, a very rich man came to our town; he had come to spend the summer and it was great news. No one could talk of anything all the time he was there; first they talked of his money, later of his eye for the girls, and-last of all, of him and me. I didn't like him at all. He was almost fifty and had a terrific gray beard, an ugly scowl, and an enormous belly. Some of the girls in the town slept with him and got money for it. I didn't sleep with him, and eventually I got all his money. For, one day, to everyone's astonishment, his big Rolls-Royce stopped in front of our house. My mother almost fainted with the pleasure of seeing the neighborhood come out to watch the fat man walk to our door. Without any explanation, he told my parents he would marry me. The fact is, that since he could not-as he had the other girls-rent me, he decided to buy me. And, of course, no one ever asks a piece of goods if it wants to be bought; and naturally the owner is entided to do what he wants with the article he owns. My parents received an excellent price for me. I haven't seen them since I left home, but I understand they are now the town's aristocracy with a manor house and a half-dozen servants.
"At the end of the summer, I went to Paris and lived with my fianc�'s aunt while waiting for the wedding to take place. It was going to be a very elegant affair, and two months went into the preparations of it. I needn't tell you that Boris, my husband-to-be, wanted to anticipate if not the union of our, souls, certainly the union of our bodies. Fortunately, his aunt, a silly old lady who died the day after our wedding, had decided to act as my chaperone and never left me and Boris alone in a room.
"Things were not too bad those two months before the wedding. I had everything a girl could want, and since I was only sixteen, the future, the wedding, the first physical acts with my hideous fianc�, seemed too far away to care about. And besides, the silly old aunt had a very handsome young butler who would sneak into my room at night and keep my mouth busy until morning. And he had a great deal to keep me busy with. He even wanted me to run away with him, but I was too much of a fool to go."
We had both become so engrossed in what she was saying that neither of us noticed we had driven out of Paris and into the suburbs. The hesitation with which she had begun her story now turned into a rather intense and distracted calm. She seemed to have forgotten about me and was instead reliving the episodes in her past; and this made me feel odd, as if I were looking into somebody else's window, watching a strange man and woman go through the rites of love.
"Our wedding took place," she was saying, "at the end of November. I felt almost lost in the elegance of the affair, and yet I behaved superbly, for Boris' aunt had been giving me lessons. I knew the right amount of coolness or warmth to show everyone present. And then, after the reception, we went to Boris' house. All the servants had been sent away. The place was silent, and for the first time, I became tense with the expectation of what would take place. 'Come, my dear bride,' Boris said to me. 'I shall carry you to the sacrificial altar.'
"He picked me up, and the great folds of my wedding gown billowed up around me. He carried me to the master bedroom. Tremendous candles burned all around the room; heavy draperies hung across the windows and gleamed with the candlelight. There was something terrifying about the large bed. Boris was still carrying me; his arms tightened about my body, and he said: 'When we go out into the world, Carla, you must remember that you are the aloof wife of a great man, that you are the mistress of many manors, that you are in the position to control almost everyone you meet. But when you enter this room you must forget all that, and remember only one thing: that you are my whore. You exist only for my pleasure. You are to be used as I see fit. Do you understand?' And his face bent close to mine.
"I said nothing, but looked away-once more to the terrifying bed.
" 'Do you understand?' he repeated, his arms squeezing me so tightly, I could barely breathe. 'Do you understand?'
"I nodded. "Then tell me it,' he said.
""In this room,' I murmured quietly, 'I'm your whore. I exist only for your pleasure. I'll be used as you see fit,'
"He laughed as I spoke, and his beard slid across my face. Then, unexpectedly, his arms relaxed and he flung me to the ground. I was too stunned to move, and even if I hadn't been, I don't think I would have dated to budge. Boris stood over me, an enormous threatening monster. After a moment, he bent down with great effort and put his hands at the neck of my gown-and pulled. I shrieked-more at the thought of the destruction of this expensive and beautiful dress than from any personal fear. He tore the dress down the length of my body, then pulled me to my feet and dragged the shredded cloth from my arms. His eyes widened and flamed to see me in my under things.
Reaching again, he ripped my brassiere from me, and my breasts trembled in their new freedom. He looked at them a long time before he put his finger out and slowly ran it across them!
" 'Superb,' he said. 'Almost better than I expected.' His finger moved to my nipple and plucked at it delicately, strumming the small pink protrusion. I must admit there was something exciting in the sensation of his rough finger stroking my teat; then he took it between thumb and forefinger and massaged it gently, then a little more fiercely, beginning to squeeze it, increasing the pressure gradually until pinpoints of flame-like pain licked up into my breasts. He released me, and his hands fell to my hips, to the elastic band of my panties. He rolled them slowly down my hips to the point below my navel. Lifting a finger again, he stroked the roundness of my belly, round and round, until involuntarily, my body began to move with his finger, shimmying slightly round and round. Without warning, he once more grasped my panties, and with one violent gesture tore them from me and flung them across the room. His large hands were again placed on my hips; they moved downwards to my thighs, and continued to move downward, pulling my stockings as they moved. He bent then and took my shoes and stockings off. I was completely naked, and he backed away from me and looked and looked, his eyes moving up and down. 'Excellent! he whispered. 'Excellent. Now turn around.' I turned around and then back and then around again; he made me go on turning, faster and faster, until my breasts rose out before me and I became dizzy as I spun. 'Keep turning,' he said, and as I turned, I saw him begin to remove his own clothing."
I could no longer go on driving. We were now out in the cGiintry and, since I couldn't concentrate on the dark roads, I pulled the car into a side lane and shut the motor. Carla didn't even notice. She was involved in her wedding night, half with the terror of what was coming, half with pleasure. She was breathing heavily. How I wished that I could then be looking at what Boris had seen, to see her spinning nakedly before me while I undressed. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I moved close to her, and put my arm round her. She didn't seem to be aware of anything I did.
"I continued to spin," she said. "And each time I faced Boris I saw him tugging at his clothing or dropping an article to the floor. I was so dizzy I could hardly stand, but when I threatened to pause, he roared, "Turn!' and I turned. He was naked to the waist and his chest seemed like a continuation of his thick beard; it was one mass of gray hair. Then suddenly, he was all undressed except for his shorts. 'Stop turning,' he called. I stopped, but had to hold on to a chair to keep from falling.
" 'Now,' he said. 'Get on your knees and crawl to me.' I did as he asked, and when I had reached him, he ordered me to pull his shorts down. I did, doing it slowly to please him, and when the garment had reached his loins his massive penis jumped out at me, almost touching my face. 'Did you ever see a bigger one than that?' he asked me.
" 'No,' I told him. In fact I never had. Its length and width startled me; I could already feel it breaking me open, splitting me in half. When hi had stepped out of his shorts he pushed the tip of his member against my lips, and slowly I opened my mouth. Its great bulging head moved past my teeth and came to rest at the end of my tongue. The heat radiated into me, exciting me; I felt myself go damp and gluey in my woman, now twitching with the beginning of desire.
He continued to push his penis into my mouth, slowly, slowly. But there was too much of it. I fondled the sack of his testicles, pushing my mouth closer to him, wanting to swallow his tool but finding it too long for me. When there was room for no more, he roared: 'You will take it all into your mouth, as you will take it all into other parts of you. Relax, let it slip into your throat.' He continued to push it in; my throat and tongue ached with the burden of his stiff relentlessness. And somehow, at last, my face was smothered into his bush of hair, my chin lay against his scrotum. I was numb with this enormous invasion, and felt its hot pulsing length throb against my tongue. He edged backwards, sliding it out of my mouth, then back again, down, down. His hands were on my head stroking me.
"He grabbed hold of my shoulders, and pulled me to my feet. 'You suck as if you'd spent your life with your face in a man's crotch,' he said. 'Now get on the bed; we'll see about your other openings.'
"I lay down and waited for him. He came to the foot of the bed and, since there was no footboard but only two posts-one on either side of the wide bed-he leaned across and put a hand on each of my ankles. Pulling me toward him, he spread my legs wide, stretching them the width of the bed until each of my legs was held in place by putting my feet outside the bedposts. After the first agony of the wrench, I enjoyed the sensation. I felt my damp woman thrust itself out freely. Boris stood above me looking between my legs. Then he knelt and drew his face down to my loins. His beard swept over my raw flesh, and then his thick lips were pressed against my swampy lips; his tongue shot out, and a shock of delight tore through my body. The tongue lashed hotly in the meat of my crotch; it stopped at my clitoris and his teeth bit at it like blades.
Then his tongue slid the length of my split, went down and under, back up again to the threshold of pleasure and darted in and out. I wanted to scream with delight; I only moaned. His hands rubbed fiercely across my body, gathered my breasts up like warm dough. He seemed to be drinking the slime of my loins, drowning in it, while his tongue sloughed through my meat."
It was driving me crazy to listen to her. Here, just beneath that black dress, lay those oily lips, squeezed together, hidden by thighs whose outline was clear to me. I could not prevent myself from pulling Carla closer to me; she continued to talk and she still seemed unconscious of me-unconscious of me, that is, as myself, but she was aware that a man, some man, sat beside her, for ever so slowly her small hand moved from her side and came to rest upon my fly. I felt myself throbbing under her touch, and then suddenly one of her fingers slid into the space between buttons and I felt the cool fire of her skin touch my flesh. I reached over and put my hand upon her knee, and her thighs moved gently apart. My fingers groped upwards, under her dress, to the darkness, to the dampness. I groped slowly along her thighs; and all the time, she talked.
"He lifted his face from between my legs, and his beard was dripping with my juice. Sliding upward, he threw the whole weight of his body on top of me. I felt crushed by his enormity; I couldn't breathe; every inch of my body was carpeted by his flesh and hair. His wet beard kept rubbing over my mouth, and I was forced to taste the excitement of my own woman. His hands moved constantly: rubbing, stroking, squeezing, pinching. He grabbed my buttocks and squeezed until I shrieked; then his fingers slid between them, and he stroked the tight, dry, little opening. 'Later on,' he said, 'we'll make it larger. But now I want the wet one. He took hold of my thighs and pushed until they were against my belly and my swamp was raised: hot pouting lips, waiting to be split apart. I saw Boris' hand go round his penis; he guided it to the threshold of its home; I felt the magnificent heat pulse against me. The head edged slowly in; my thighs shot wide apart, my legs went round in the air, kicking with impatience. The tip of his member sucked in and out of me gently, until I was so excited my fingernails tore at my husband's shoulders. 'In,' I cried. 'Put it in. All the way in.' His mouth lapped across my breasts, then came to rest on my nipple. He sucked hungrily, always moving his penis. 'Now,' he roared, and with one thrust I felt its length tear into me. Nothing existed but this wild painful lunge; and then it was lodged in me-that tremendous instrument. It beat like drums and affected every part of my body. I began to writhe hungrily round the hot cork while Boris chewed at my nipples, bit at my breasts, pinched all over my body. The hot iron seemed to be inserted not only several inches in my loins, but everywhere-past my belly, into my chest, beside my heart. My heart throbbed with its throbbing."
She had undone my buttons and her hand circled round my rod, and she pulled tenderly. My fingers had come to the warm flesh of upper thigh and continued to move; I brushed over the soft hair-not at all surprised that she was not wearing panties. And then I was wild; I tore at her dripping rawness, my fingers pulling roughly. She moaned, and paused a moment in her storyf her eyes closed, head rolled backwards, hair like moonlight tumbling on the back of the seat. Into the trembling moisture of her hole I dug my fingers. The hand that had been round her shoulders now slid into her bodice and circled her breast; holding it tightly, I scooped it free, and in the dimness, I could see its pale perfect shape, its stiff dark tip! My face bent to it; my lips hungered at it; my tongue ttembled across its spongy excitement. Then she went on talking again, and I wanted her to shut up. But she wouldn't; she was, I am sure, in a sort of trance-and her excitement was four years old; she was hot with Boris' penis in her. I remembered what she'd said earlier-that the only way to shut her up was to keep her mouth busy. I lifted my head, and our faces met powerfully; our tongues entwined, circling. After a moment, I broke away, and eased her head down until her lips kissed my pounding tool. She began to suck, abruptly, savagely, taking all of it into her mouth as if she wanted to swallow me with it. My fingers were insane in her hole; I wanted her to stop sucking so that our loins could meet, but it was impossible to pull her away. I was almost ready to explode; her soft relaxed lips and tongue manipulated my hard tenseness. Suddenly she stopped, sat up straight, and snapped her thighs together so that my hand was clamped in her; she began to talk.
"He lay on top of me for a moment, very still, as though he'd fallen asleep. Then suddenly he came to life, and began tossing and thumping, lifting his weight from me and dropping it again; his penis thrust deep, moved out, was thrust again. It happened a thousand times, and each thrust seemed to wind me a little tighter. His thrusts became quicker, quicker, until we were scratching crazily at each other and I was bursting into pieces, and Boris' juice was pouring out of him, spilling into me like a fountain into the sky. We lay still for a little while, and then the horrible things began to happen. First I thought his bites were playful, but then the pain was too great to be pleasant. His teeth snapped at my neck and shoulders and breasts, digging into my flesh until blood flowed. I cried and tried to push him from me. 'Remember that you are my whore,' he said, and he slapped my face. He started to rise and withdrew his member from me; moving over me, he seated himself on my belly and began to beat me mercilessly. His hand slammed across my face; his huge buttocks jumped up and down on my stomach. All pleasure and excitement was beaten out of me. It must have gone on for half an hour, and when finally he had finished pounding me with his body, he started with shoes, then with a belt, and last of all he scraped the metal hook of a clothes-hanger across my flesh. I was limp and bloody, weak and faint. I wanted to die, and yet was terrified that Boris would kill me. His erection was more tremendous than ever; it terrified and revolted me. 'Get on all fours,' he said. Every part of my body ached, but with the last resources of my strength I turned on my stomach and dragged myself into the required position. Boris walked across the room and took one of the large candles from the walls; when he returned to me, he spread my soft buttocks apart and gradually moved the candle close to me until I felt a distant warmth at my anus. The warmth increased, and then once, twice, I felt the flame lick up at me. I jumped into the air in agony, then tried to run away from him, but he was too much for me. Once again I was forced into that hideous position, and once again I felt the fire poking at my little hole. This went on interminably-until I was severely burned. Then Boris climbed on top of me and without a moment's hesitation, drove his penis through the burns, through my tight channel. I screamed and screamed; I could hear Boris sighing with a passion he had not known earlier in the evening. His arms went round me; one hand tore at my breasts, pulling them as he would a cow's udder; the other hand circled between my thighs. This intense agony continued almost until dawn. Each time my pain seemed to diminish, he would leave the bed and return with the candle. Just before dawn, I went into a dead faint. When I awoke I was on the chaise-longue; the blood-splattered bed-sheets were on the floor. Boris himself lay like a monstrous mountain on the bare bed. His penis was again-or perhaps still-erect; it was repugnant to me. My body was a tortured wreck; I could move nothing but my head. And that was my life for four years. Boris' ingenuity never failed him; he had new and greater agonies at his beck and call. Sex became the horror of my life-the thought of it nauseated me, whether with him or any man. Many times I wanted with him, to go away; even being a beggar would have been better than that life. But it wasn't possible; he would have found me anywhere I went. And besides I was watched all the time. He hired people to see I never strayed too far.
"During the day I played the part of the respected and cool wife of a great man. And my husband was the perfect gentleman in public. People often told me how surprised they were that my marriage was such a success; after all, they said, Boris was so much older than I. And I smiled, knowing how rapidly they would change their minds could they witness one of our orgies.
"Not many months after our marriage, I became pregnant. Boris was both delighted and infuriated. Delighted, because he had long dreamed of having a son and heir; and infuriated, because his treatment of me had to become less brutal, both for the child's sake and because it would have looked very bad for him to have me visit my doctor with bruises, scars, and welts all over my body. It was then I decided that life would only be tolerable for me if I could keep myself pregnant as often as possible. And when the child was born, and it was a girl, I was delighted because I thought Boris would surely want me to become pregnant again to try once more for a son.
"But I was mistaken. He despised the girl, and to my astonishment decided that I was too much of a fool ever to be able to bear him a male child. And of course he was unwilling to relinquish his more intense sexual pleasures for the minor pleasures of paternity. One morning, two or three months after little Angela was born, Boris came to my bedroom and said:
" 'Carla, my dear, a young man will visit you tonight.'
"'Who?' I asked.
" 'You do not know him yet.'
" 'I'm afraid I really don't feel up to meeting anyone new, Boris. Can't he be put off?'
" 'I don't want any arguments.'
"I knew it-Would be safer for me not to argue, for although Boris never discussed our love-making during the day, he remembered when I annoyed him, and would silently take it out on me at night. 'Will he be coming for dinner or for coffee?' I asked.
" 'For neither. You may expect him at eleven.
" 'At eleven. Isn't that a little late?"
" 'Perhaps. Never mind. Go to bed whenever you like-but be sure,' he added fiercely, 'that it's before eleven. 'Do you understand? Be naked in your bed before eleven o'clock. Everything else will be taken care of. You may be certain of that.
"And, of course, I obeyed his instructions. I lay in bed wondering what new agony was in store for me; but where Boris was concerned, one never needed to be long at wondering. And so, soon after eleven, my bedroom door opened and a young man came into the room. He was very handsome and not much older than myself but I no more desired him for a sexual partner than I did my husband.
" 'You are the young man my husband told me to expect?' I asked, knowing that he was. But he barely looked at me; he said nothing. He walked to the foot of my bed and began to undress; when he was nude, he came round the side, his penis in his hand and, wordlessly, indicated that I was to manipulate it. I stroked it indifferently and passively allowed him to dart it into my mouth. Then, rather impatiently, he flung me away from him and lay down on the bed, his red penis sticking into the air. The young man made signs for me to sit upon his instrument; I squatted over it, wriggling myself until his tip slid to my opening. As I was about to sink down on it, he jerked his body, and his member glided along my crack like a wheel in a track. I had to begin again; and again he jerked it away; and again I laid its head to my hole. This time he allowed me to drop down, and the bar oozed deeply into me. At this point, he moved his body, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and forcing me to lie down on top of him so that my legs, like his, hung down; his penis slipped out with our motions, and I forced myself down on it, corking its hot length securely into me. He then reached across the bed, took the two pillows there and slid them under his hips so that I was lifted curiously with my behind in the air. It was then I realized that Boris had entered the room. He spread my buttocks and dug that fat limb into my bottom, then dropped over me so that I was sandwiched between the two men; a sandwich loaded with two enormous sausages, one thrusting me up, the other down.
"This young man-whose name I never learned-became a regular visitor in my bedroom. Later Boris added a young woman to our orgies, and I was taught the pleasures or horrors of lesbianism. I don't know how many others joined us during my four years with Boris. There was a dwarf; and for a while there was a tattooed man with a green penis and rose petals painted on his anus; 'Smell my pretty flower,' he used to say. Now and then he would ask one of the other men to water his flower, and I would watch Boris or another go to it with delight.
"But none of these parties pleased Boris as much as the simple pleasure of torturing me. And this he did only when we were alone, and rarely more than once a month. Once he said to me: 'When I have had enough of you, Carla, I will destroy you quite beautifully. I will fuck you until you are screaming with joy-and you know I can make you-and at the moment of your climax I will shove a sizzling hot iron up your ass. Do you think any woman could ask for a better death?'
"My only pleasure lay in my daughter, Angela, and Boris often threatened to make this infant join in our orgies. But I knew he never would, for no matter what infamies he sank to at night, his behavior was impeccable during the day. And I ultimately learned that to save his good name, he would forego even the pleasures of the flesh.
"Then, when we had been married nearly four years-" She broke off suddenly, shuddered, looked at me and seemed for the first time in hours to remember who I was; and then she became aware of my hand still clamped between her thighs, and of her breasts hanging out of her dress.
"What are you doing to me?" she said. "Where are we?"
"We're in the country somewhere. And as for what I'm doing-I'm doing what you want."
"No no no." And she drove my hand away.
"This is no time to be coy," I said. "Less than half an hour ago you were sucking me savagely."
"That isn't true."
"No? Look here." And in the pale darkness, blurs of her lipstick could be seen on my penis. "Let's go through with it now. The night's been leading to this."
"No. You're out of your mind. I'm through with filth, with men."
"Are you?" And I forced myself against her, pushed my mouth to her tight tense lips. At first they refused to part, but gradually, as my tongue flickered against them, they relaxed, softened, and finally spread for my kiss. My hand went once more to her thighs, and once more my fingers caressed her rawness and her mound. When we broke apart, passion made her eyes glow. We undressed hurriedly, left the car, and walked into the meadow beside the road. The first tremor of dawn showed in the sky and I turned to look at Carla and saw all that Boris had seen. Almost all. And as we tumbled into the grass, I saw the rest, parting gently, smiling oilily, empty and lonely for it was waiting to be filled with the tongue that jutted from my loins.
We were lovers for only three months. And we always met after midnight and drove' out to the scene of our first mating. Our coupling was always violent, and each of us was insatiable. We could neither of us have enough. But we would have to leave off before the sun rose.
"I've got to get home," she'd say. "It wouldn't do for Angela to know I'd been out. It's difficult enough to keep the servants from missing me although I've changed all their rooms around so that it's practically impossible for them to know I've gone. I don't want them gossiping: the child might pick it up."
It was always Angela. I grew jealous of the child. It was because of her I couldn't come to Carla's house. It was because of her that Car la refused to meet me during the day.
"I want her to know she can depend on me every moment of the day," Carla told me. "She must always know where I am. She must trust me completely."
"You'd left her the day we met, hadn't you?"
"That was an exception. It had to do with Boris' will. I've told you he wasn't French. On that particular day I had to see his ambassador. In fact, darling, if we hadn't met at that time, we probably never would have met."
"We were fated to meet."
"Yes," she sighed. "We were."
These were always night-time conversations, while we lay against each other in the dewy meadow. When the nights became cooler we had to seek out barns, and night after night I pumped away at Carla while cows watched us curiously. Finally, I asked her to marry me.
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Because of-"
"Angela." I finished the sentence for her.
"Yes."
"Angela. Angela. Why don't you get her to fuck you-and then you wouldn't need anyone else at all."
Carla laughed. "She wouldn't be as good at it as you."
"Look, Carla, we can't go on like this-meadows and barns. Meeting only at these crazy hours. Sometimes I want you at noon, and then I have to think: twelve more hours."
"And don't you think that happens to me? But we have to go on like this."
"What do you mean-go on? How long? All our lives?"
"Our lives aren't that long. Think of being lovers just as we are for another twenty years."
"It won't be fun in the winters."
"We'll think of something."
But we never thought of anything. Or, that is, I was full of ideas, but she wasn't having any of it. "But Angela-" she'd say.
During our last two weeks we spent more time fighting than making love.
"Something's got to be figured out or-" I began.
She interrupted me. "Or what?"
"Or we'll have to stop seeing each other."
"No." I could see she was frightened.
"I'm serious, Carla."
"I'll go crazy if you leave me."
Now and then I'd try to take her home or, after leaving her at dawn at the cafe where we met at midnight, Td try to follow her. It was impossible. She'd change taxis three or four times.
Throughout the last week, we didn't sleep together. I'd meet her at the cafe ask her if she'd changed her mind.
"No," and she was in tears. "Can't we go on like this?"
And I'd walk away, get in my car, and drive around the city, returning three or four times during the night. She stayed there all night, even after thf: cafe had closed, walking miserably on the pavement.
The last night I was sure she was going to change her mind.
"You don't know what will become of me," she said. "You'll be all right," I said. "You'll nave to be all right for Angela."'
And I left and drove round the city. When I returned she was gone. She wasn't there the next night, nor the next; for a month I went to that cafe every night, then out to the freezing autumn meadows, then to the barns where the cows looked at me and seemed to low-no, sucker, she's not here.
There was no way to find her. I didn't know any name for her but Carla, and when I hired a detective I was amazed to learn that there were hundreds of women in Paris with silver-blue hair. I knew it was useless; and I knew that the mistake had been mine-that Carla in barns and meadows was better than no Carla at all. I stayed on in Paris, waiting for that summer day to return-to mark one year from the day we met. And for two weeks before and after the day I went to that cafe, thinking perhaps she'd forgotten the exact date. She was never there.
Since that time, except for the war years, I'd come back to Paris every year or so, and I always tried to extend my visit until after the day on which we'd met. But she seemed to have vanished completely; and not until that spring day in 1953 did I hear of her again. We might have gone on, as she had reasoned, for twenty years. How quickly those twenty years had gone; how empty they'd been; how full they might have been.
I was a man in his middle forties whose chase was over.
But no. These chase wasn't over. Perhaps now, knowing who she was, I could find out what the last twenty years of her life had consisted of.
I waited a day or two, watching the papers for more news of Carla's death. There was nothing. The story of her death vanished, much as she had vanished, and as in fact almost as mysterious as she.
Three days after the story first appeared, I noticed a small item in the obituary column of one newspaper. It merely said that the Baroness was to be buried that day at the family's private burial grounds, and that she was mourned by her only daughter.
Early the next morning, I phoned Angela Arvon.
TWO
The address was unlisted, but I found the phone number in the directory; it was still listed under the name of Baron Boris Arvon.
On the second ring, a man answered.
"May I speak with"-I hesitated, not knowing exactly what tide the girl laid claim to. Finally, I said: "May I speak with Mademoiselle Arvon?"
"Who is calling, please?"
It was only then I realized how futile my effort was. What would my name mean to a girl so freshly bereaved of her mother. The name would mean nothing; she would refuse to speak to me.
"Howard Cunningham," I said. I had never spoken my name so hopelessly.
"Will you hold on a moment please, sir? I'll see if Mademoiselle is at home."
Doubtless she wouldn't be, I thought. But then, to my surprise, I heard a woman':, voice speaking to me.
"Mr. Cunningham?"
"Yes."
"This is Angela Arvon. Are you the American Mr. Cunningham, an old friend of my mother?" Her voice was much softer than her mother's had been; Carla's voice was husky, sensual.
"Yes," I replied. "I'm surprised you knew about me."
"I don't know about you-or very little, in any case. Do you think you could come over here, even for a very few moments?"
"Indeed I could."
"Can you come now, this morning?"
"Yes," I said, and she gave me the address.
The Arvon mansion lay in the Bois de Boulogne. It was an enormous house, rather ugly on the outside except for the formal gardens already in bloom and the depth of chestnut trees that bounded three sides of the estate.
I drove up to the house, through the high gates, and up the driveway; I parked several yards from the terrace where the Arvon chauffeur took over and rode my car round to the back of the house. As I climbed the steps to the door, I found myself trembling with the sensation of Carla everywhere; I could feel her in everything around me.
Even in the girl who opened the door. She was the age at which I had known her mother, but she was paler than Carla, and her grief was darker. Her hair was cut like her mother's but was a different color: rich, soft auburn. And her eyes were green. She was in deep mourning, and her smile too was a little mournful as she asked me to come into the house. Walking ahead of me, Angela showed me to the salon, and it was only when she was at a slight distance from me that I saw how much shorter she was than Carla.
"Please sit down, Mr. Cunningham. What do you drink at this time of day?"
"Anything at all"
She poured two sherries, and then sat down beside me on the sofa. I was trying very hard not to look at her.
"Your mother spoke of me?" I asked.
"Not until the day before her death. And she didn't say very much about you."
"Would you tell me what-"
"She said: 'Angela, I think an American named Howard Cunningham will phone here during the next few days. I want you to ask him here, and I want you to give him this envelope.' I asked her why she couldn't give it to you herself, and she smiled: 'I may not be able to see him. Please don't question me, darling; just do as I say. And be nice to him-because I loved him very deeply.' That was all she told me. Wait, I'll get the envelope for you."
She stood up, crossed the room, and returned, handing me the letter.
"If you'd like to read it now, please go ahead. I'll leave you alone for a few minutes.'
I tore the envelope open and found two sheets of paper inside; each bore the Arvon crest. The first sheet was dated the day before her death, and it read:
My dearest Howard-
I have waited almost twenty years to write this letter to you, and now at last I have come to do it, I have so little time that I must hurry.
I love you. I have never stopped loving you. And I want you to know everything that has happened to me because you failed me when I needed you so terribly. I told you I would go crazy. I have-but a calculated madness which took hold of me between midnight and dawn: our hours. I enclose a list of people whom I want you to see. It is an incomplete list of my madness, but it is composed of people who should remember your name. Most of them have seen you, just as I have seen you-as I drove slowly by our cafe on the anniversaries of our meeting. I saw you, in fact, last summer: you've aged, of course-but I think you are handsomer, riper-looking. How much I yearn for one more night with you in a meadow.
Go to see the people listed; but go to see them only in the order in which they are listed. I think most of them will tell you what I want you to know.
My death has brought you to reading this. With this note I am leaving a note for Angela which she will find the day after my death. She will pay a great deal of money and the newspapers will write nothing more of my death. It would not even be written about the first time-but it must-so that you will know, so that you will come to my house, Boris' house.
When you've seen all the people I've listed, I want you to come back once more to this house.
I've never stopped loving you.
Carla.
The second sheet of paper had six names and addresses on it. I stared at the names blindly, remembering Carla, sipping sherry.
Angela came back to the room and sat down beside me.
"I'm so glad you're here, Mr. Cunningham. We were the only people she loved."
"Yes," I sighed. "I hope you didn't fail her as badly as I did."
"I've always been aware how much she gave up for me. And I've tried to make her sacrifices mean something. But you-would you tell me when you knew my mother?"
"Not long after your father died. We broke up because I wanted to marry her, and she wouldn't because ... " My voice trailed away.
"Because of me."
We were silent then and I watched her breathing heavily beside me.
"I'd better go," I said. "There are some people your mother wanted me to see for her."
"Will you come again? Please do."
"Thank you. I'd like to very much. When I've seen these people."
"We stood up and she gave me her hand. I could not resist drawing her toward me and kissing her on the forehead; it was a paternal contact, much like my first with her mother. But as my lips touched her cool forehead she seemed to press herself against me. I didn't want to relinquish our closeness, but at last I broke away. Angela's cheeks now had a fuller color than they'd had a moment before, and her green eyes glistened. I stroked her face gently.
"You're so much like your mother."
She put her hand over mine and drew close to me again.
"I must go."
"Yes ... " But neither of us moved.
I felt the freshness of her youth against me, and for all my efforts at control, I knew my excitement was bulging against my trousers. Her belly pressed against the bulge and she shuddered as if having been in contact with a flame.
Looking down, I could see into the neck of her dress. Her breathing was heavy and I saw the pale mounds rise and fall. They curved gently from the center of her chest, and seemed to sway to the sides. She made a deliberate gesture and two soft pink tips flickered for a moment, then were hidden. I knew that if I didn't move, there might be regrettable incidents.
"I'd better go," I said and stepped away from her.
"I'll have your car brought around front" Her eyes" looked down to the bulge at my fly, then she brushed past me and went out of the room.
"It'll be there in a moment," she said, coming back, and I followed her cut of the salon, through the central hall, to the door of the house. On the threshold she stood with her back to me. As if by accident, she moved until she was directly before me. Through my trousers and through her mourning clothes, I felt the roundness of her buttocks; she moved sideways, subdy, cat-like.
But then the car was there.
"There you are," said Angela, turning to face me. We shook hands. "I look forward to seeing you."
She watched me get into the car and drive to the gates of the estate. How much like her mother she was, I thought
THREE
Of the six addresses Carla had left for me, the first two were in Paris, the third was on the Riviera, the next two were in Paris, and the last was somewhere near the Pyrenees. It would have been easier to see the third and sixth consecutively, rather than return to Paris in between, but Carla must have had her reasons for insisting upon the order; and besides I had gone on so many trips because of her, one more would not put me to any great discomfort.
The same day I met .Angela Arvon, I telephoned the first person on the list, a man named Peter van Drooft. It was a left-bank number. A woman answered the phone.
"May I speak with Monsieur van Drooft please."
"He's busy just now. Could I have him call you back?"
"No, I'm not going to be at my hotel all day."
"Could you call back in a half-hour or so."
"Yes, all right"
I called back but he was still busy; and when I phoned a third time the woman asked me if I ringing for an appointment. I told her yes.
"He'll be able to take you at four today," she said.
"That's fine." And I hung up wondering if he were a doctor.
I arrived at the apartment house at a quarter to four. It was an old, rather shaky-looking building, and since there was no concierge, I had to strike matches to read the list of tenants on the wall at the foot of the stairs. Van Drooft was on the fifth floor.
It was a great effort to walk the steps because the staircase was narrow and each step high. I was breathing heavily when I reach the fifth, and last, storey. There were two doors on the landing, one of which had no knob. I knocked at the other.
"Come in," said a woman's voice. It was the voice I had spoken to on the telephone.
I turned the knob and entered a small anteroom. Aside from the desk at which the woman sat, there were only three pieces of furniture: two wooden chairs and an ash-stand between them.
"Are you Mr. Cunningham?"
"That's right."
"Would you sit down? Mr. van Drooft will see you in a moment."
She was about forty and very fat. Her too-black hair was fixed in a thousand little curls, like springs, that trembled when she spoke. Her round white face was thickly powdered, and two bright spots of red glowed on her cheeks. She wore too much lipstick, too much mascara over her enormous black eyes, too much blue eye shadow, and her eyebrows had been shaved and painted over with a thin black line, like a moustache.
The lace neck of her dress was cut low over the squeezed line of her breasts: the breasts themselves made me think that two watermelons had been shoved into her bodice.
She caught me staring at her and she smiled, her thick red mouth splitting open on little yellow teeth.
Suddenly a man's voice shouted through the door behind my chair, "Colette."
Colette stood up, turned round and moved a little knob in the wall behind her desk. She looked into it. The man's voice mumbled something, and Colette said: "All right." She shut the knob, rubbed her hands on her hips and walked to the door behind me.
"Excuse me," she said.
At the moment she opened the door, something insisted I turn, and I did in time to see a barren-looking room and two naked young men, one of whom was bent over, hands on knees; the other stood behind him his penis in a state of half-erection. The door closed.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I left my chair and went to Colette's desk, then quickly turned the knob in the wall. Once open, I could see into the next room which was clearly a photographer's studio. I couldn't see the photographer himself, but I could see the two young men. They were now both standing up. Colette waddled into my line of vision and I saw her make a great effort and tug her dress over her head. She was naked underneath; line after line of loose flesh enfolded her body, and as she moved, all the folds trembled and danced. The small triangle of brown hair was almost hidden by the doughy thighs that leaned over it. Her enormous breasts hung down heavily, ending in purplish teats. She wore nothing but blue suede shoes. Walking once more she lifted herself to a white table and spread her thighs as wide as she could. The two boys approached her. One of them, the dark one, had an erection, but the blonde one was pulling his rod hurriedly, trying to get it hard.
"What's the matter?" said the voice that had called Colette from behind the door, but whose owner I couldn't see. "Can't you get it up?"
"I'd like to see you get it up if you had to fuck this old wreck," said the blonde boy.
Colette laughed. "You ought to see him get it up, kid. Isn't that right, Peter?" Then she lifted her arm and took the boy's tool in her fat hand. When it was erect, she said, "Better shove it in fast, honey-before it goes down."
She leaned back and the boy wedged himself between her thighs; in a instant his member was lost in Colette's mountain of soft brown flesh. The other young man got behind the first and inserted the tip of his penis into his friend's anus.
"Hold it now," said the photographer. They held it.
There were a few clicks and some brushing sounds, and they changed positions: one boy in front, and one behind Colette. Then there were some close-ups: Colette smiling broadly with a penis in each ear; Colette smiling broadly with a penis in her mouth and one between her breasts; Colette's woman smiling broadly as one of the young men lapped at it.
"That's all," said the photographer. "You boys get dressed in the other room."
I snapped the knob back over the opening, and returned to my chair. I was hardly seated when the door opened behind me and Colette, thrust respectably back into her dress, entered the room.
"Mr. van Drooft will see you now," she said.
She closed the door behind me as I passed into the studio. Van Drooft was fussing with a lens. He was about my age, I imagine, but because he was very thin he seemed a bit older. His smile was friendly.
"Mr. Cunningham?" he asked.
I nodded.
"What can I do for you, sir?"
"I've come at the request of-" I was about to say Baroness Arvon, but then decided that it was un likely she had told him who she was. "Carla. She had sort of platinum-blue hair. I don't know."
"Carla," he repeated with some amazement. "What a long time it's been since I saw her."
"She's dead," I told him flady. "Ah, that's too bad."
"Yes. She left a letter for me asking me to see you. She said you would tell me things."
"Cunningham, Cunningham," he said very quietly. "You must be Howard Cunningham."
"That's right."
"Good heavens, I never thought you would actually show up. I have a package for you; I've had it ready for almost twenty years. It'll take me a while to dig it out. But first I suppose we ought to talk. Are you free now?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have no more appointments today. Why don't you come into my living-room and I'll tell you anything you'd like to know about Carla."
I followed him into the next room where the two boys were still dressing. Van Drooft showed me to a chair, then poured two glasses of wine and sat down opposite me.
"Why don't you hurry up?" Van Drooft said to the young men.
"We're hurrying," 'they answered. And we were all silent until their shoe-laces were tied and they went out through the studio.
"To our memory of Carla," van Drooft toasted and sipped his wine. "Now what shall I tell you?"
"Everything."
"Ah, but everything is too much."
"No, I'd like to know everything."
"To the last detail."
"To the last detail."
Then I begin on an autumn night many years ago. I was a very young man, a photographic artist. For me, the camera was like tubes of paint. I didn't want to be a businessman; I wanted to make pictures that would be art. And at that particular time, I was most interested in faces. I was always looking for an interesting face. When I saw Carla the first time, I thought-here is an interesting face, a face that suffers. And, I must confess, I thought it was also a beautiful face.
I saw her on the terrace of a cafe one cool autumn night so many years ago. I was only passing by, but the instant I saw that desperate face, I stopped and sat down at the table next to hers. I wondered how I could dare ask a woman so obviously unhappy to come pose for me. I was still thinking of an approach when suddenly a very abrupt young man came charging up the pavement. This, I take it, was you. Naturally, I overheard their conversation; even had I not been sitting so close to Carla, I would have heard it, for this foolish young man-yes, Mr. Cunningham, he was a foolish young man-shouted and ranted. He said: "Carla, I've come for the last time. Have you changed your mind?" And the girl said nothing. He repeated: "Have you changed your mind?"
"And she said: "How can I? You know it's impossible."
"It isn't impossible. You'll have to do as I ask-or we're through."
"No, please. I beg you not to say that."
"It's true. We're finished. I won't come back again."
"You don't know what will become of me," she said.
And he replied, rather nastily, I later realized: "You'll be all right. You'll have to be all right for Angela."
Then the young man turned and disappeared. The girl wept silently. At that point, I decided to leave; but then, in spite of myself, I spoke to her. You think it was selfish of me? Perhaps, but I was an inconsiderate young man; and although generally I was rather timid, where my art was concerned I was headstrong. So I said: "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. Is there anything I can do for you?"
She didn't seem to hear, so I repeated the question.
"No no no," she said through her tears.
I realized it would be useless to insist, so I took a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote on it: "I'm a photographer and I should like to do some studies of your face. I'm not in a position to pay for such services but you will have copies of the pictures in payment. If you feel you might be generous enough to spare a few moments to me one day, I'll be very grateful." I wrote my name and address, put the note on her table and left the cafe.
I heard nothing from her for a week or ten days. And then late one night, as I was reading in bed, there was a knock at the door. I put my trousers and robe on over my pajamas and went through the studio and anteroom, and I opened the door.
"Mr. van Drooft," she said, handing me the note I had left her at the cafe.
I pushed the note aside, and said: "As if I would have forgotten you. Please come in." She followed me into the room where we are seated now. "This is certainly a strange time to have taken my offer up."
"I'm sorry, but it's the only time I have."
I took her coat and she sat down. My eye-both as man and photographer-drank in the body which her dress revealingly concealed. We talked only a little that evening because we were soon involved in photography. She was a very patient model and enjoyed the work immensely. Once or twice I apologized for not being able to pay her, and finally she said: "I don't need the money, and I'm perfectly delighted that my being here is of any use to you."
We continued working, with only occasional pauses, for three or four hours. During our breaks, we drank wine and coffee, and spoke a little, but the conversation was extremely impersonal. Frankly, I didn't want her to feel that I had lured her up to my place on false grounds, and so I myself never brought the talk around to ourselves. She, on the other hand, may have taken my conversation for a sign of coldness, and consequently wouldn't talk of herself. This happened not only that first night but during the many following nights, because, Mr. Cunningham, Carla began to come very frequently to my studio.
After a couple of weeks doing only studies of her face, I began to take full portraits of her with different costumes and different arrangements. She went into this with a great deal of enthusiasm and even began bringing wonderful costumes along with her. The first time I photographed her in costume, I was rather embarrassed about it and asked if she'd mind putting the dress on.
"I'd love to," she said.
"You can change in the salon," I told her.
She smiled rather strangely and said: "As you wish," and went into the unlighted salon leaving the door open behind her. I was arranging the studio for the next shot and the rustle of her clothing disconcerted me. Looking up once, I saw her standing naked in the shadows of the other room. I turned away quickly, but the suggestion of her flesh burned into me. And it was the same way every time she changed in or out of costume: there would always be that one single glance at her flesh in the darkness. Once, perhaps unconsciously, I left the light on in the salon. She said nothing about it, but she took longer making her changes, and I looked at her lengthily that time, watching her slow casual motions. After that I always left the light on, and eventually she began to dress more or less in the doorway between the two rooms. As it finally happened, she never left the studio at all when the change had to be made. And when she changed, I ceased to bother with arrangements in the studio, but instead watched her. She would move with impossible slowness: each button, each hook, would take minutes to undo. She lowered her dress gracefully, each inch of her body coming into light like a revelation. Stepping out of the dress, she stretched herself as if free at last, and then began the long process of loosing her brassiere. Her breasts emerged and the nipples stared at me like eyes asking: why don't you come closer? Every part of that body was firm yet soft. I wanted to photograph it, and at the same time, I wanted to possess it.
Once, when she was completely nude, she turned full upon me, and said: "Peter, wouldn't you like to photograph me like this?"
"I'd love to," I replied and began to arrange the composition. She was very passive for these pictures and I had to touch her to get her into the right attitudes.
It was an effort to keep calm when my hands circled her arm or her shoulder or the smooth warmth of her legs. She smiled, saying nothing, occasionally asking: "Is that better?" At times, relaxing after a picture, her thighs would move inadvertently apart and I'd glimpse the inviting line that divided her fur. I'd expect the thighs to separate even further, and they would-but only slightly, enough to hint that a feast lay between those tables. My breath growing short, heavy, I'd stare frankly down, and suddenly the thighs would close like guardsmen.
The nude photographs went on for a week or ten days, and then one evening when Carla arrived, she said: "Peter, I've been reading the most interesting article-all about color film. Have you ever tried using any?"
"Good heavens, no. Do you know how expensive that stuff is? I couldn't possibly afford it."
"I thought you'd say that, so do you know what I've done? I've ordered a great deal of it. I thought it would be fun to try out."
"I won't be able to accept it, Carla. I could not pay you for it and I can't accept a gift-"
"Oh, nonsense, Peter. You're so stodgy. It must be all your cold northern blood."
"Only my father was northern. My mother was Spanish."
She laughed tauntingly. "Who'd ever have guessed it? Do you mean to say that somewhere within you is a big, long, hard passionate streak?"
Since this big, long, hard passionate streak had been violently evident at least twice every night for the past two months, I refused to comment on it. I could not explain my behavior then, nor can I now, except under the vague and rather hypocritical-sounding word: honor.
I had asked Carla to come to me as a model, and although a change in our relationship was what I wanted more than anything else-and, clearly, Carla was not against it-possibly the time was not yet ripe. If the Spaniard in me longed to throw himself on top of this ravishing woman, the Dutchman's iron voice whispered restraint. The Dutchman seemed to be in control at present, but the Spaniard was driving both himself and his alter-ego crazy.
But to return to our conversation. I said, "I'm sorry, Carla, I don't think I ought to accept."
"Peter, honestly, you've given me so much pleasure in this studio-and I'm certain you'll give me lots more-that I'd like nothing better than to offer you a little something in return. Won't you accept?"
She was undressing as she spoke, and when she was altogether naked, she came close to me, and said: "Won't you accept?"
"I shouldn't," I replied.
"But you will...."
My hand twitched with desire. "Yes, I will."
She moved until our bodies were touching, and then abruptly, I turned away. I walked into the salon, poured myself a drink, and then another. When I returned to the studio, I was calmer, and Carla lay on the chaise-longue. She smiled and said: "I'm happy you've accepted my offer."
"The only thing is, of course," I told her, "that I don't know the first thing about color equipment. I don't have the lighting and-"
"Oh, that's all right. I've taken care of everything."
And, indeed, she had. For, one afternoon, about a week later, two men came to my. studio with a tre-m ndous crate. Carla had seen to everything: film, lighting, developing, a camera, and there was even a small chest of makeup for color photographs. The rest of that afternoon, and all through the evening, I read the books and manuals that had come with the parcel. By the time Carla arrived that night my head was whirling with all I'd learned.
"I've spent the past eight hours," I said to her, "trying to get some idea how to work all this."
"Did it come today?" she asked with some disappointment in her voice. "I didn't think they'd deliver it until tomorrow."
"It doesn't matter, does it?"
"N-no, of course it doesn't matter. But let's not begin until tomorrow."
"That's fine with me," I said. "I was going to ask if we couldn't wait because, frankly, I'm exhausted. Would you like to go out for a bit? I'd like some air."
Outside, the night was cold and, further, since it was so late, there was no one on the street. We walked for an half-hour along the Boulevard Montparnasse and then I suggested we stop in at one of the cafe on the Boulevard. I knew a great many people who frequented these cafes and most of them had begun wondering why I no longer appeared in the evenings. Now my suddenly appearing with one: of the most ravishing beauties anyone had ever seen would give them a turn.
But Carla refused.
"I'd rather not," she said. "I don't want to be seen. It's not likely, but there may be people I know."
"Are you ashamed of being with me?" I was fairly angry, particularly, since I'd just been thinking how proud I'd be to be seen with her.
"No, it has nothing to do with you, Peter. Normally, I'd be proud to be seen with as talented a man as you. But, well-look, couldn't we go to a small place down one of the side-streets, and I'll try to explain."
"All right," I said, rather sullenly.
That was the first night Carla ever talked about herself. Her story was vague and broad. How much of it was true, I still don't know. In any case, she told me of her daughter and how she didn't want the child to know of her absences. It was also that night that she spoke of you, Mr. Cunningham, and made the request that all the photographs-or, rather, copies of them-be made into a package and saved for you.
"How will he know about me if you don't intend to see him again and don't know his address?" I asked.
"He'll know. I promise you. It may be a good many years, Peter, but one day he'll come to your studio."
I have that package for you-and there are, indeed, some extraordinary pictures among them. Well, that night, Carla and I spoke a good deal-mostly about ourselves, and this turned out to be delightful, since it did, in a way, begin, the change in our relationship. We grew closer that night, just by talking until dawn. And suddenly, it was dawn, and Carla became panicky. I found a cab for her, and she pecked me on the cheek and started to climb into the car.
"I'm so glad," she said as I was shutting the door after her, "that you're prepared to accept what I offer."
She was smiling when the taxi rolled down the street.
The following night, she was strange from the moment she entered, and there was a rather mocking expression on her face. She said very little, and we decided to begin with the color-experiments at once.
"I'd better put the makeup on," she said, and opened the paint-chest that had come with the other equipment.
She undressed then, taking even more time at it than was usual for her, and she was more disorderly than usual. When she stepped out of her dress, she left it lying on the floor. Her brassiere dropped on top of it and her hands rubbed underneath her breasts, raising them so the pink roses at their tip reached toward me.
"We'll have to put some makeup here," she said, indicating her teats, "so they'll show up better in the color. Will you help me do it?"
I nodded, but found it impossible to say a word. Then, slowly, she began to roll her panties down her hips, down her thighs, down her legs. The triangle of her groin seemed somehow new to me, as if I were seeing it for the first time. It was the Spaniard in me, I suppose, whose eyes I could no longer resist using. He, I, we, saw the body that must be taken, taken violently, and in every conceivable way. I wanted to use every part of her, for every part seemed ready, pulsing, thumping, singing with anticipation.
Her panties were on the floor, and with the point of her foot she kicked them to the little pile of clothing.
"First I think you ought to powder me," she said.
I went to the makeup chest and took the soft powder-puff out of its wrapper, then broke the lid off the powder box and dipped the puff into it until it was rich with powder. Approaching Carla, I began to pat her shoulders gently with the pink dust; its perfume rose around us. She turned and I patted the powder down her back and to the tops of her buttocks; there, I hesitated.
"You'd better do it lower down, too. Don't you think so?"
I obeyed her, the puff moving across the roundness of her flesh. My fingers tingled at the contact. Beginning to powder her thighs, they moved apart gently, but slightly, so that only a few fine feathers of the puff could edge between. Abruptly, she swung round and, since I was kneeling, my face was against another powder-puff, her own. I backed away and lifted myself to my feet, not looking into her eyes, and I started powdering her neck, then chest. I circled the feathers round her breasts and she sighed; my fingers trailed back and forth across her nipples. Kneeling once more, I powdered her belly and the breadth of her hips, and let the puff run over the triangle of pale hair.
"No, not there," she said. "A darker color for the hair would be better."
"Later," I said, unwilling to stop.
I, patted the front of her thighs and again they moved open, but this time wider than I'd expected, wide enough to see the moisture glued to her hidden hair. I powdered the inside of her thighs, arching my hand so that my knuckles slid between the woolen lips. She shuddered and groaned. My heart was wild with passion, and I was about to thrust my mouth into her warmth, when her thighs clamped together.
"My knees," she said. "You're forgetting my knees."
I powdered her knees and calves quickly for my interest was concentrated above. Drawing away, Carla said: "Some rouge on my nipples." But, since I didn't move, she walked to the chest and brought the rouge to me. Standing up, I began to apply the color to her teats, stroking and patting, then working the color with my fingers. I took some more rouge and put a few pale streaks on her breasts to heighten their tone. Both my hands circled her breasts, and I squeezed them, kneading the color into the skin.
I bent once more, and applied the rouge to the hair in her groin, stroking gently, allowing my fingers to follow the bend of her body and to trail into the hot wet groove below.
"I think we're ready now," she said and turned away.
"Ready?" I repeated foolishly.
"For the pictures, of course."
"The pictures will come later," I said.
"No, no," she smiled. "The pictures will come now." And she lay down upon the chaise-longue. "Please bring me a glass of wine, Peter."
"No."
"Please ... And then we'll see about the pictures."
I went into the next room, undressed, poured out two glasses of wine, and then started back to the studio. But I stopped, put the glasses back upon the table, and stripped myself of all my clothing. I can't tell you what a relief it was to allow my howling penis its freedom from being pressed against clothing. So, undressed, I picked up the glasses again and, as I was about to enter the studio, I paused dead in the doorway, unable to move or to speak, for the most incredible little scene was being enacted before my eyes.
Carla still lay on the chaise-longue, her skin exquisite with powder, her nipples glowing with rouge, and she was looking across the studio at the door that leads to the anteroom. She was so casual I could not believe she saw what I saw there. He was a fairly short, but well-built boy of about seventeen, his large black eyes staring wildly at Carla. He wore a T-shirt and, at first, I thought he was otherwise completely naked, but then I saw that he was wearing briefs. The three of us merely stared without moving, until suddenly the boy drove his fingers through his shock of black hair; then he put both hands to the band of his briefs and pulled them down his hips. His penis burst out, large and enflamed.
"You like it?" he shouted across at her, his voice echoing in the studio.
"Yes, yes, yes," she shouted back at him, and her legs shot wide apart, so wide her flushed meat gaped at me.
The boy tore his shirt off, pulled his briefs down his legs, and lunged across the room, flinging himself with a jump on top of Carla. Their mouths were open and they slammed against each other; I saw Carla's arm twist until her hand reached the boy's member. Drawing her knees back, she held the head of his penis against her opening, and with one thump the boy drove himself all the way into her. Bouncing, pumping, swinging, grinding-they went at it like devils.
I flung the glasses of wine to the floor and raced to the chaise-longue.
"Stop it," I cried. "What are you doing?"
But they ignored me, continuing to bang themselves as if I didn't exist. I grabbed the boy's shoulder and tried to pull him away from Carla, but her legs moved until they circled his back and she kept him in place. Standing beside them, I shouted, "Stop it, stop it," and was torn between rage and passion. They had both begun to moan, and his penis made a sucking sound as it dug in and out of her juicy sheath. Carla shrieked and the boy dropped motionless upon her; there was no longer any sound but their hoarse breathing.
Taking hold of his shoulder again, I pulled at him and this time managed to dislodge him and bring him to his feet.
"How did you get in here?" I asked him.
He stared at me dumbly and then down at his red still dripping rod, the sight of which infuriated me even further.
"Answer me," I roared. "How did you get in here."
"Through the door," he said. "Who are you."
"Nobody."
"Tell me who you are."
"I'll tell you who he is," said Carla lazily. I turned upon her. "You filthy whore. Would you let anyone who walked through that door fuck you?"
"No, not anyone, Peter." She seemed offended. "But he's so cute. Come here, darling, let's do it again." (This last was spoken to the boy.)
He turned toward her.
"No, you won't do it again. Put your clothes on and get out of here."
"Me?" Carla asked, smiling.
"No, not you. I'll take care of you as soon as he's gone." I looked at the boy. "Get out."
"I don't want to," he said. "I want more of that." And he put his hand round over Carla's woman.
"That's enough," she told him. "You'd better leave now. I've got to save a little for Peter."
"I won't leave."
"Yes you will," she said, removing his hand from between her thighs. "If you don't, you'll never have anymore from me."
"All right, I'll go, but just let me suck you a little."
He knelt beside the chaise-longue and his face disappeared into the swamp of her loins.
"I won't have this," I said.
"Oh, be quiet, Peter, and come here. Yes, yes, come here."
I obeyed, leaning against the chaise-longue until the tip of my penis poked against Carla's sweet red mouth. She moved her head, forcing my rod deeper, always deeper. The warmth rugged at my blood, and her tongue circling around made me shiver. Relinquishing my organ, she put her mouth to my scrotum and lapped playfully in shore quick strokes. I edged round and then threw myself on top of her, giving the boy a sudden thrust as I dropped. He fell back to the floor and I found that now my face was at a level with Carla's groin. Moving downward, I felt her insert my penis in her mouth once more, and ar the same moment my face went between her thighs and before my eyes lay only the violent quivering pink meat, aflame with the syrups of pleasure. A world of ripe odors, of flesh, of curling hair, of heavy moisture. My tongue went up and down, eating and drinking at Carla's full table. I bit at her gently and felt her bites return mine along the length of my penis. My tongue dug into her canal, flickered in and out until everything shuddered, went hot and cold. My mouth was not big enough to enclose all the delights Carla could offer.
Suddenly she pushed my member front her.
"Fuck me, now, Peter. Fuck me," she sighed.
I lifted my face and turned my body around. Our faces met violently, mouths grinding together, tongues flung deep into each other. I felt her legs draw up under me and her cavern was arched against my throbbing organ. With one jolt, it was in-inserted deep within her. Legs went round my back, squeezing me so tightly I could barely breathe. My hands clutched at her breasts, tugging at them, molding them, and our mouths never parted. Her hips began to sway slightly, and my own joined in with her motion.. We rocked back and forth gently; then gradually I began to circle my penis in her. Ultimately I began drawing it in and out in long slow movements, taking it out as far as the head, then plunging back deep, endlessly. She was shaking with passion and I sensed that her moment was near: my thrusts became shorter and faster, but always I dug deep if her as if I must break the walls of her sheath. Each thrust made her moan and her tongue ran wild in my mouth. Our moment came together-one maddening instant when our teeth ground and we were the dripping movement of our loins.
Afterwards, we lay breathing heavily.
"Now it's my turn," I heard the boy say.
I refused to answer him.
"Get up," he said to me. "If you don't let me fuck her I'll fuck you."
I still wouldn't reply, but then abruptly I realized he meant what he'd said, for he jumped on top of me and was trying to drive his penis into me. Twisting myself, I made him drop to the floor again, and I pulled myself to my feet.
"Get out of here," I said.
"Let him stay, Peter," said Carla.
"No, I don't want him here."
"Don't you think I've got enough for both of you?"
"That isn't the point. I won't have a strange kid barging in here and playing around with my woman."
"Your woman," the boy sneered. "As it happens I got into your woman before you did."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"I told him, Peter."
"You mean you knew him before tonight?"
"Yes," she laughed. "I met him last week on the way back from your place one night. He thought he was going to rape me and he dragged me into the courtyard of a building. Of course I could have screamed, but it was such fun to be raped, so I only fought and scratched, and the next thing I knew his wonderful tool was driving me crazy."
"I gave you a good fuck, didn't I?" he said.
"You always do, Jean. And Peter gave me a good one too. How marvelous to have two wonderful men, one warming up just as the other is cooling off."
This arrangement may have been wonderful for Carla, but it was not the sort of thing that amused me. "So you think the party is going to be for the three of is every night?" I asked her.
"Why not?"
"Well, I won't have it. You could have gone on meeting him at some other time. What was the idea of bringing him here?"
"Well, if you want to know the truth-"
"Of course, I do."
"I wanted to get you jealous. I wanted to see you go as crazy as you've been driving me these past weeks. Every night I'd steamed up and then you-you did nothing but take my picture. The night I met Jean I was so hot I could barely walk down the street. You can imagine how hot we both were to start rolling on the concrete of a courtyard on a cold night. I had it all planned for him to come here the night the color film came. I though I'd get you really worked up (and I succeeded) and then when you were most excited Jean would appear and it would happen just as it happened."
"But how could he get in with the door locked?" I asked.
"It wasn't locked," she replied. "I released the latch when you weren't looking and I'd warned him to come in quietly, undress down to his underwear, and then wait until he heard me send you for wine. At that point he was to come in. I suppose I don't have to explain the rest."
Jean was apparently uninterested in all this talk and he held his erect penis in his hand as if reining it in.
"Let me give it to you now, Carla," he said.
"Yes, yes." She closed her eyes and waited.
As he had before, he jumped and flung himself upon her.
"Let's do it," she said, "with me on top of you this time."
"And what am I supposed to do?" I asked.
"You can take pictures of us," Jean answered. "There's good money in these pictures. I can sell them for you."
"Oh, yes, Peter. Take pictures-in color. But wait, we'll have to put makeup on Jean."
She left the chaise-longue and brought the paint chest over to the boy. She applied the makeup to his face then powdered his body with the same care I had taken in powdering hers.
"We'll put some rouge on your penis," she said. "Although it's red enough now."
She applied the color to her own lips and then, by putting her mouth over Jean's member, she transferred the color to him Then she evened the rouge out by licking at his penis with her tongue. She licked a great deal, and most of the paint disappeared, and she began the process again. Doing this, she knelt on the floor, and slid my head between her thighs. She pressed down against me and her meat seemed thicker than before as it filled my mouth. I sucked her passionately and brought my hands round to fondle her buttocks. My fingers trailed into the split and I tickled her anus which began to widen. Breaking away from her, I took the jar of cream from the makeup chest and smoothed it into her anus; then, kneeling in back of her, I drove my aching member into her hole. My arms circled round her, one hand digging into her flooded woman and the other squeezing her breasts; and all the time she continued sucking the boy. I thrilled with the oily sensation of the cream and the tightness of this new hole. She kept forcing her buttocks back upon me; the pressure made me wild and I lunged in and out savagely, pulling at her woman, until I cried with the pleasure of my ooze.
"Well, the makeup's on," she said, rising away from me. "Now, we've got to try some pictures. You tell us how to pose."
There was no need to tell them anything, for they both seemed quite expert at posing. I took a great many photographs that night, and when rest-time came, the only change was that Jean climbed off Carla, and I climbed on. Toward dawn, Carla said she had to leave, but Jean decided that he liked my flat and thought he might stay a few days.
"You will not stay here for a few days or even for a few minutes. It may be possible to tolerate you for the pleasure of Carla, but when she's not here, I don't want you here either."
Since we continued arguing, Carla dressed and left the apartment without waiting for the results of the discussion. Still naked, Jean and I argued. Finally he lay down on the chaise-longue and pretended he had gone to sleep. I shook him, but he would not respond.
"You're not deceiving me," I said. "You'll have to get out of here."
A little smile came to his face, and I noticed that his penis had become erect again. He turned around suddenly and buried his face in my crotch. I backed away.
"If you let me stay here," he said, "you'll be able to have fun even when Carla's not around."
He fondled my member, and when it stiffened, put it into his mouth. He sucked as well as Carla, and doubtless had had as much experience at it as she. After several moments of this, Jean reached for the makeup cream and spread some on my organ; then he bent over and pushed back-and my hand guided my penis into its new home.
And so, he stayed that night. He stayed, in fact, for the next two weeks and the three of us had great pleasures during the night. Unfortunately, Jean saw to it that I had pleasures during the day as well, and it was perhaps best that all finally ended-or I might have been a wrecked man. I can remember no period of my life when I was in such a state of exhaustion as the last days of the two weeks with Carla and Jean.
The color photographs of the two of them making love came out reasonably well, especially the close-ups, and Jean did, as he had promised, sell them for me. This brought me more money than I'd ever had before and also began the career which I practice to this very day. Doubtless Jean cheated me out of much of the money, but I could not complain since he was a willing model.
It was primarily jealousy that broke up this happy arrangement of sex and money.' Carla was jealous because Jean was more interested in pleasing me than in pleasing her; I was jealous that Carla cared so much about Jean; and, finally, Jean was jealous because when Carla was present I preferred to fill her openings than his. (This last jealousy kept me rooted in Jean practically all the time when Carla was absent-and was the chief reason for my fatigue.) At last, the three of us had a row and we ended by actually fighting. Carla dressed and stormed out swearing she would never come back. The moment she was gone, Jean rushed at me laughing and delighted.
"Now, there's only the two of us," he said.
"Yes, and that's one too many."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you'll have to go. And I won t put up with any discussion."
"Have you forgotten our wonderful afternoons-just the two of us?"
"No, unfortunately, I haven't forgotten."
"Weren't they wonderful?"
"It was interesting for two weeks, but I'm afraid going to bed with you isn't quite to my taste."
He fell to his knees (we were both naked) and began sucking my penis.
"Stop it," I said. "You'll have to go."
But he continued, and I could see he had begun to cry. It was difficult to believe that this tearful boy sucking my penis was the same as the one who had raped Carla. In any case, I flung him away. He returned, and I pushed him again, harder than I intended. Coming back, he deliberately provoked me into hitting him, and he continued to do so. We both became a little wild, and I pounded him with all my strength. It was a while before I realized how much he was enjoying it. He moaned and sighed; his penis was in an enormous state of erection. I'd gone so far, I couldn't stop, and I continued beating him, pinching him, tearing at him until he was bloody. With each wound I inflicted, his passion rose, and he rubbed against my body giving it small wet kisses. He dropped into a heap at my feet, begging me to kick him, and I did, again and again, and each time he came back to stroke, lick, kiss my ankles, knees or thighs. Half-crazy I threw myself on him; his buttocks rose under me, and suddenly we were locked together. And while we rolled and swayed, I continued pounding him and pinching him as if this last horrible act must purge me of all the terrible degeneracy of the past two weeks. My member throbbed in and out of him, tearing at him, and finally I came.
I was so revolted afterwards that I couldn't look at him. He begged me and pleaded with me all that day and into the next night, and through that night-while I waited for Carla who never returned. I refused to talk to Jean or look at him; and twenty-four hours later he was gone.
Carla never came back, and except for one short note I never heard from or of her again, A week after she left, she sent me a letter saying she hoped I would remember to make the package of photographs up for you. And she asked two other things, one of which I was not to tell you immediately, and the other was-well, Mr. Cunningham, that you would pose for a picture-Van Drooft looked at me rather shyly. "Of course, I'd pose for a picture. Although I can't."
"I mean, a picture in the nude. The kind of picture I took of Carla."
"Why, in heaven's name, would she have wanted me to-"
"That is what I am not to tell you immediately. The whole thing shouldn't take more than a few moments. It is the least either of us can do toward the memory of such a passionate woman."
"Yes, all right. I agree."
"If you'll just wait a minute, however, I'll bring the package. It should be in back somewhere. Please help yourself to some more wine."
When he had gone, I stood up to pour some wine, and it was then I noticed the enormous shadow of Colette at the door leading into the studio. I moved and saw her, dress up, hands between her thighs tugging body at her mountainous flesh. She seemed embarrassed but didn't stop what she was doing.
"I couldn't help-I overheard the story and it excited me. Will you fuck me, Mr. Cunningham?"
She threw her dress over her head and came to me, waving bet arms. I was so startled I might have struck bet, but at that moment Van Drooft returned.
"They were easier to find than I'd thought-" He stopped short. "Ah, I see Colette is ready for the photograph, I hope you don't mind, Mr. Cunningham. It would be difficult to get another female model at this time of day. And it's best to do the thing right now."
"I'm not sure...."
"It will all be over in a moment."
Colette smiled rapturously and came to aid me undress. She was not very helpful because her hands were concentrated on my fly, but finally I managed to get out of my clothes.
"You have such a nice one," said Colette. "But it's so itty-bitty. We have to make it big for the photograph, don't we?"
I encountered the same difficulty the young man had had earlier that afternoon when he was faced with the prospect of getting an erection over Colette.
"Perhaps this will help," said Van Drooft and he handed me some of the nude studies of Carla, and some of the colored pictures he had taken of Carla and Jean. It was rather a shock to see her again, just as she had been twenty years ago. But I succumbed to the memory of her flesh, and my penis rose-Colette still laboring at it maddeningly.
In the studio, Colette eased herself onto the chaise-longue and I climbed on top of her. This was much more pleasant than I'd imagined for I sank deep into her meat. She drew her legs wide and back and I edged my rod through the meaty mound.
"Don't put all of it in," said Van Drooft. "Now, hold it."
The camera clicked once, twice, and then twice more. "That's all," said Van Drooft. "I'll develop it now." And he was gone.
"You can put all of it in now," Colette whispered and she lumbered her hips down until I found my penis lodged in her weight.
She was all wet and pasty. I fondled her breasts, round and flabby like loaves of unbaked bread.
"Oh oh oh," she whimpered and moved her hips so quickly that my penis tensed for its spurt.
Colette wanted more, but I considered it quite enough and left her to dress. When I had my clothing on, Van Drooft came back and handed me the photograph. The shock of it made my heart beat. Carla had asked Van Drooft to superimpose a picture of me on one of her and so I had replaced Jean on this photograph, and she had replaced Colette. One half was faded and one half was fresh, but the area where my half-inserted penis entered her half-filled woman was so dear it might have been photographed yesterday.
FOUR
It was not until several hours after I had left van Drooft's studio that I began to react at the story he had told me. For a while I thought I could not fulfill Carla's last request-or, at least, fulfill it any further. Already in van Drooft's story, I could see the roots of Carla's promise to go crazy beginning to take hold. I wanted to go no further, to hear no more, and yet was it more painful to listen to than to have lived? The second half of her life was to be in part a revenge against my infidelity. Was I to deprive her of this revenge? Clearly, I could, and since she was dead it could hardly matter. But in the midst of the anguish I felt, I knew that I must go through with it, just as she had gone through with it.
I drank late into the night, but did not succeed in getting myself drunk or even numb. Eventually, I went to bed, my bones aching and I slept badly. I slept, dreamed and woke; then reslept, redreamed, and rewoke; and then again. Nightmares brought me awake with sounds coming from my throat. In each of the dreams, Carla walked round a street full of gaping people. She was naked, and her body was painted like a rainbow. I followed her, and she avoided me, but she always looked to see if I was there. Sometimes she would stop beside a tree and, like a dog, lift her leg and urinate. At that point in the dream I might decide I could reach her. I'd begin to run.
"Howard," she'd call.
"Yes, I'm coming."
"Howard...."
"I'll catch you."
"Howard...."
"Don't move. Stay there."
"Howard...."
"Yes, Carla, yes."
"Howard...."
And she'd begin to laugh, and laughing, fall to the ground with her legs wide apart. "Howard...."
"Your cunt, Carla. Your beautiful cunt. It smells like pastry. I want it."
"Howard...."
I ran to her, running, running, getting no closer. "Howard...."
"I'll bite into your pastry."
"Howard...."
"Here, I am. I'm coming. We'll fuck savagely."
"Howard...."
Suddenly I was before her. Her legs went wider and what lay between them invited me. I was naked and my erection kept growing. It grew, as it were, for acres and smiles, and as it reached her loins, I realized I was bu-ying my penis in a nest of snakes. There were a million snakes crawling in her woman. I leaped back, pulling my penis in like a telescope.
"Howard...."
But I'd come no closer. "Howard...."
The snakes grew, tangled; their tongues flickered in and out, lapping toward me. "Howard...."
I stood, utterly horrified, but refused to help her. The snakes were enormous now and had begun to twist round her body.
"Howard!" she screamed, horrified. "Howard! Howard! Howard! Howard!"
And I woke from the dream, groaning. But only to fall asleep again, repeat the nightmare, and awake once more. At dawn, I washed my face and smoked a cigarette, exhausted from my terrible night. I tried once more to sleep, and this time I was more successful. I slept dreamlessly until the afternoon.
The next name on Carla's list was Jean Dupont. I wondered if it could be the same Jean van Drooft had talked about the day before. His address was that of a hotel in the Pigalle area. Since Carla had listed no telephone number for the hotel and since I could find no number for it in the directory, I drove up to Pigalle about six o'clock that evening, wound my car round the small back streets, and finally reached the hotel.
It was all freshly painted and had an air of false respectability; the reception desk was at such an angle that anyone could easily go up the stairs without being observed. Clearly, this was a place that rented rooms by the hour. Walking to the desk, I hit the bell, but no one came. It took a good deal of ringing to get a rather old man down the stairs.
"Yes?" he-asked.
"I wonder if there's someone here named Jean Dupont?"
"No, there's no one here by that name."
"But he has lived here."
"I couldn't tell you." And he started back up the steps.
"Wait a minute. Couldn't you check? Perhaps there's a forwarding address."
"No. No forwarding address."
I took a thousand-franc note out of my wallet and placed it on the desk.
"Are you sure?" I said.
He came down the stairs quickly, and grabbed the money.
"Dupont hasn't lived here for some time. But he has a little friend upstairs. Maybe she can help you. Name's Rose and she's in number 17-third floor to your right."
"Thanks very much."
"At your service."
I climbed to the third floor and found number 17, the door slightly ajar, and the room very dark. I thought that Rose might be too occupied to provide me with any information at that particular moment, but I listened, and hearing no noise, I rapped at the door. A woman's hoarse voice mumbled something which I thought was to come in, so I entered and closed the door behind me. In the dim light of the room-the windows were heavily draped-I saw the plump naked form of a woman on the bed.
"Did you get it?" she asked me, and then suddenly sat up in the bed. "Hey, who are you?"
"I'm terribly sorry." I smiled, and she growled but didn't bother to cover herself. In the red-toned darkness of the room, her flesh looked like a ripe fruit. Every part of her body glowed with ripeness, maturity. Her breasts were not too large, but they swelled out firmly and ended in jutting brown nipples. Her arms and legs had a thick meaty softness. She was the kind of woman that oozes sex all along her body.
"Get out of here and come back later," she said. "He'll kill you if he sees you here."
"Jean?"
"Not, Jean, Pierre. Say, who are you? How do you know Jean."
"I don't. I'm-"
"Shut up." She jumped out of bed in a panic. "He's coming up the stairs. Oh my God."
I started to the door, but she stopped me. "Go behind that screen and for God's sake don't breathe. I'll send him out again for a minute and then you can leave."
I was hardly behind the screen when I heard the door open.
"Here's the wine," said Pierre harshly. "It's so warm out."
"Oh, Pierre," said Rose, "I know it's warm. But would you mind going out once more for your sweet little girl?"
"I don't want to go out. I'm going to fuck you now."
"In a minute. Couldn't you go down and bring me an aspirin? I have a terrible headache."
"I'll take your headache away. I have just the pill for it."
"I have such an awful headache. Please get me an aspirin."
"If you don't shut up, I'll make your headache go away. And I'll make your head go away with it." He sounded like he meant it.
"Please ... " Rose begged, and then there was the fantastic sound of hand meeting flesh. Rose shrieked, then began sobbing. I assumed it would be some time before I could make my escape, and so I loosened my collar and looked round at my whereabouts: there was a sink and a bidet. I hoped Pierre had no intention of using either. Since there was nothing else to do, I settled myself down on the bidet and listened to their conversation.
Pierre: Get on that bed and for Christ's stop crying. Rose: But my head....
Pierre: Didn't you have enough? You want more? Rose: No. No, honey. Only I want to be so nice to you and I won't be at my best when I have a headache.
Pierre: You better be at your best. Now, get on that bed.
{Sound of springs; and Pierre grunting as he gets out of his clothes.) Pierre: Everything's sticking to me, it's so damn hot.
You going to stick to me? Rose: Sure, honey. Going to stick to you like glue.
Only my head-Pierre: (Roaring.) Enough about your head. Here, let me rub this pill against your head. It's a nice warm pill. Rose: (Sighing.) Oh, it's a good pill. But pills have to be swallowed, don't they? Pierre: That's right.
(Sucking sound.) Rose: Wouldn't you like to swallow my pill? Pierre: No, I won't swallow it, but I'll chew it up.
(Bed-sounds and lapping. Pierre grunting. Rose sighing passionately.) Rose: Ah, that's good ... Yes ... there ... bite it ... , harder ... oh, Pierre ... Pierre: What a cunt!
Rose: All yours, Pierre ... Put your tongue in ... around and around ... deeper ... ah ... ah ... , I'm all aching. I'm all one piece of aching cunt. Move over so hard and hot ... oh oh oh ... again ... bite me there again.
Pierre: Don't pull me so fast, you'll make me come-Yes, that's good. Yes, gently. Put y-or lips again.
Rose: Oh, Pierre, fuck me, fuck me. I'll go crazy.
Here, you lie down. Pierre: I want to eat your tits. Put that thick brown nipple in my mouth. Rose: There ... oh, bit? it, Pierre ... kill me, Pierre, chew me to pieces.
Pierre: Enough of that. Come and sit on me. That's right. Squat over it. Now lower yourself slowly. More. It's going in.
Rose: I know, I know. Its enormous helmet is piercing into me.
Pierre: Lower yourself some more. More. It's almost in. All the way. Press yourself down all the way.
Rose: {Breathing heavily, her words coming with difficulty.) All of it is in me now ... Your whole column is filling CM, burning me ... Do you want me to move?
Pierre: A little ... Move a little ... That's right ... Slowly, up and down.
Rose: Oh oh it's slipping out ... in ... it's a mountain tearing in and out of me ... I feel it beating, throbbing, in me ... Yes, do that ... Oh, Pierre, do that ... Move like that ... Oh, in again ... Quickly! Push it more ... Oh, wonderful ... And your balls hot against my ass.
Rose: Quickly ... quickly ... it's steaming in me ... if it gets any harder I'll burst open ... oh, now, again, again, again ... break me open destroy me ... those balls ... that cock....
Pierre: Your cunt full of grease ... I'm coming....
Rose: Come ... Lunge, plunge, faster, faster ... oh, I'll die ... of ... ' crazy ... faster ... you ... hot cock ... oh oh ... owww....
Pierre: Spill ... spill....
Rose: Ohhh....
(A few minutes of silence.)
Pierre: Put your filthy cunt in my face. I want to drink what I just filled you with.
Rose: How wet I am. You've drowned me with your boiling juice. Oh, fuck me again. I can't bear to be without your cock in me. Let me lie down now. Come on top of me. Drop your body on me. Suffocate me. Oh, how heavy you are.
Pierre: You're so soft. I'm falling deep into you. Your meat is taking' me in. Rose: Let me take your cock in. Put your cock in.
Yes, all the way. Oh, it's wonderful. Make me come again. Don't wait! Pump, pump!
Yes! Bounce on me; jump on me: Pierre: Put your legs up around me. Move your behind. Good. Rose: Hurry! I can't wait! I must have it ... Oof ... like that. Pierre: I spurt again . ...
Rose: Yes, fill me again. I feel it storming in me More ... More ... More ... More ... Kiss me, Pierre ... Kiss me.
(Stifled moans; sighs; the slurp of their kiss; the squishing sound of his penis moving in her. Rose screaming. Pierre grunting.) Rose: That was so good. I could do it all night. Pierre: We will.
In fact, I was becoming desperate they might. Obviously Rose had forgotten about me. To remind her, I made a slight scratching sound at the screen.
"What was that?" asked Pierre.
"I-I didn't hear anything."
"I heard a noise."
"It's probably the water-pipes. Oh, Pierre, my head had got worse. Couldn't you get me an aspirin?"
"You want me to get dressed now? If I get dressed, I won't come back, and you can fuck yourself the rest of the night."
"Oh, no, Pierre. You wouldn't leave. Just put your trousers on and ask at the desk for an aspirin. Please. And then we'll have wine and start again."
"All right," he said without enthusiasm. I heard him slip into his clothes and then the door opened and closed.
"Hey, you," hissed Rose. "Quick, get out."
I came out from behind the screen.
'You got some earful," she said.
She was standing up and I couldn't resist driving my hand between her legs; the hot dripping flesh thrilled me.
"Come some other time. I've got some for all."
"Tell me where I can find Jean Dupont."
"Why?"
"I'm an old friend of his." 'You sure you're not a cop?"
I wriggled my hand in her meat. "Does that feel like I'm a cop?" I asked. "Cops like to fuck too."
She whispered the address to me and then pushed me out the door, giving me an affectionate goodbye by pulling at the bulge in my trousers.
As I walked down the steps, Pierre was coming up. He was shirtless and shoeless, a hulking brute of about thirty-five. He looked at me menacingly as I passed, and then continued up the stairs.
Since the address Rose had given me was that of a hotel only a very short distance away, I didn't bother taking my car, but walked back to the boulevard and south a couple of blocks and then turned left, right, and left. I emerged on a fairly broad, light (even though night was beginning to Ml), pleasant-looking street. The hotel itself was not so freshly painted as the other had been but, nevertheless, it was obviously of a much better quality. It was more a place for tourists than rendezvous.
At the desk, an elderly woman adjusted her glasses and smiled at me.
"I'd like to speak to Jean Dupont, please."
"I'll ring up to his room," she said, and picked up the phone, dialed a number. "Monsieur Dupont ? There's a gentleman here to see you." She turned to me. "What did you say the name was?"
"Cunningham. Tell him I'm an American."
She told him. "Yes, Monsieur Dupont. Yes, I'll tell him" She replaced the receiver and turned to me. "He's coming right down, Mr. Cunningham. Would you take a seat in the lobby?"
I went into the lobby, sat down, lit a cigarette, and looked round the room. Less than five minutes later, Dupont came down. He was a short, dark, stocky, young-looking man, rather handsome, and he was extremely well-dressed. Coming into the lobby, he smiled to me.
"Mr. Cunningham?"
"That's right"
"What can I do for you, sir?"
"I wonder if we might go out for a drink. My errand is a little odd to discuss here."
Curiously, he winked at me. "Fine," he said. "Where would you like to go?"
"Anywhere. Somewhere quiet."
"There's a nice little cafe not far from here."
We left the hotel and went round the corner to a fairly large cafe that faced on a square. Since it was approaching the dinner hour, the terrace of the cafe was deserted.
"Would you like to sit out here on the terrace?" he asked me. "Yes."
We sat down and when the waiter came I ordered for both of us.
"Now, I'll tell you why I've looked you up."
"No need to tell me. Do you want man, woman, or child?"
"For what?"
He looked at me with some bewilderment. "Say, who gave you my address?"
"I was just about to tell you. It was Carla."
"Carla who? Aren't you the American I expected this afternoon?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
The extreme politeness he had shown me until now disappeared at once. "Who are you?"
"You know my name. I've come at the request of Carla."
"I don't know any Carla. Are you sure you're not a cop?"
"How could I be a cop? I'm an American."
"How do I know that? I think I'll say goodnight."
"Wait a minute. Look here." I handed him my passport. He flipped through the pages. "It looks real, " he said "It is real."
He leaned over confidentially. "How much you want for it?"
"For the passport."
"Sure."
"Sorry, it's not for sale."
"A hundred thousand francs?"
"I assure you," I said sternly. "It's not for sale."
"Well, what the hell do you want from me then?"
"Information."
"So you are a cop." He made as if to get up from the table, and I put my hand on his arm.
"Listen, Dupont, the information I want is of use to no one but myself. In fact, it isn't even of any use to me and I'm after it only for sentimental reasons."
"I'll bet," he laughed.
"Do you remember a woman named Carla."
"No."
"A very beautiful woman."
"Look, friend, I deal in beautiful women."
"This one was very young and had platinum hair. Perhaps you knew her at a time when she was friendly with a photographer named van Drooft."
He looked at me incredulously and said, "Carla. Oh, my God, you mean Carla."
"That's what I said."
"I haven't seen her since before the war."
"She's dead."
"I didn't know that."
"She only died a few days ago. The fact is, she left a letter for me in which she listed a number of names and addresses. Yours was one of them. She asked me to go around to see these people and to ask them about their relations with her."
"What did she want you to do that for?"
"To be perfectly frank, it's a form of revenge. Carla and I were jn love; when we broke up, she warned me of the kind of life she'd lead if we separated. Now, I think, she wants me to make good her promise."
Dupont nodded his head and smiled. "Say, you must be the man who ran out on her."
"If you want to put it that way-"
"Sure, she told me about you. She said you'd come by one day to ask about her. Well, what do you want to know?"
"Anything you'd care to say about Carla."
Staring thoughfully into his drink, he seemed to be considering what he ought to tell me.
"Did you say you knew van Drooft?"
"I only met him yesterday. His was the first name on the list."
"Lousy little pansy, he is."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I was fucking him day and night: him and Carla both. They could never get enough of it. I finally had to get away from both of them or I would have dried up and died."
At that point, he recounted more or less the same tale van Drooft had told me, only the homosexual element was completely reversed. It was van Drooft who had begged Dupont to stay on at the studio; the trio broke up because, Dur ont found it physically impossible to keep both his concubines satisfied; van Drooft was the one who had begged to be beaten and had so disgusted Dupont that the latter walked out on him. Which of the two versions was the true one, I cannot at all say, and besides it is of little relevance in relation to Carla. One thing is certain: she was not playing husband to either of them; whoever was the pot, Carla was not the potter.
I pick up Dupont's story where van Drooft's left off:
Well, (Dupont was saying) after I told van Drooft to go to hell, I left his apartment, and I didn't' want to have anything more to do with him. But I didn't feel I was finished with Carla. I wanted more of her.' Still, I decided not to go back to the studio, so for the next week or so, I went to the building where van Drooft lived-I went there about midnight, and every night I waited an hour or so. Sometimes while I was waiting, van Drooft came out of the building and went down the street. So it seemed pretty sure that Carla wasn't interested anymore. I knew she was interested in me, but where was I going to find her? She didn't know my address, and I didn't know hers.
Finally, I got fed up and stopped coming around to van Drooft's. I didn't see Carla again for almost five years-until the spring of 1938. During those five years, I got established in a nice little business. I went into the meat trade. I'd had some experience at it from the time I was a kid, but just about after I lost track of Carla, I went into it seriously. It was pretty easy. I had a lot of gorgeous girls who were nuts about me-and I started thinking, well, why not make a profit out of it. So what I did was, I'd tell the girls that if they expected me to fuck them, they'd have to do me little favors in return. Some of them agreed right away, and some of them had to sit around a while and realize what they were missing before they came around. I'll tell you, when a girl's been fucked by Jean Dupont, she stays fucked, and no one else satisfies her. That goes for guys like van Drooft too. You know why I'm living in the hotel I am and wearing these clothes? Because there are sixty-six women, men, boys and girls all over Paris who'll do anything I say just to get a fuck out of me. And naturally they don't any of them get one more than once every two or three months. So, because I fuck them half-a-dozen times a year, they spend the rest of the year being fucked by the people I send to them. Half of them don't even need the money-and they don't get it. They do it for love of me. All sizes, shapes, and ages. My youngest employee is a little girl of seven. A pretty little girl named Katherine. I've been fucking her since she was four-and-a-half. She's got a cunt like a cow's. She's very much in demand-not so much as before, of course-you'd be surprised what a difference it makes to a man to have a girl of five or a girl of seven. Still, I can get her one or two customers every night, and on Sundays she's kept as busy as a church door.
My youngest boy is eleven. Until now, of course, he hasn't been much good except for being fucked. And it was quite a job, I can tell you, getting his ass-hole stretched wide enough to accommodate some of my bigger customers. I had to bugger him two months straight before he widened up. (I have quite a big instrument, in case you're interested.) And after that I made him keep an enormous rubber tubing up his ass night and day for six weeks. Now, he could take a good-sized fist right up the old hole and never even flinching, in fact, he often does. But as I was saying, he's coming around now to the time where he can give a good fuck as well as take one. He's becoming the star of middle-aged women. All he has to do is crawl on top of them and twiddle his little pencil against their sharpeners and. bang! the ladies are screaming in ecstasy. As a matter-of-fact, I'm beginning to have trouble with him. He claims he'll go into business for himself if I don't visit him more often.
My oldest woman is just ninety-two. She's the best cock-sucker in Paris and, maybe, all of France. She's a rich crazy old babe with a big house in a ritzy part of the city. In back of the garden, she's got a kind of small barn, and in that she keeps a cow, a horse, a mule, a monkey, a dog, and a cat. She takes her customers right into the barn, and they all go to town on him. She has no teeth of her own, see, and she's had rhe teeth pulled out of all her animals. I tell you, you haven't had a wild night until you've been sucked by her and her zoo. Then she gives a little performance with the horse fucking her. What a sight! Her cunt's so big she could try on an elephant. But if you go to visit her, be careful not to bend over or the horse will go riding on you. She's got a funny sense of humor, that one has.
And then my old man, who's 88 next month. He wouldn't be much in demand except he's got the biggest collection of whips in the world, and he's raring to use them.
But these are only four of my employees. There are sixty-two others, all devoted. Of course, business hasn't always been so good. For a long time I had to content myself with half-a-dozen women, a couple of men, and an occasional child. But now I've got my suite at the hotel and my house in the country. Things couldn't be better.
As I was saying, for the four-and-a-half or five years when I didn't see Carla I was all the time building up my little empire, and I didn't have much time to think of her. Actually, I was always busy walking around trying to get people to fall in love with me, so I could make capital out of them. Well, as it happened, I was doing the outskirts of Paris that night, and I was going around the cafes at Vincennes. When I'd reached the edge of the woods, I saw a taxi stop about ten feet ahead of me, and out stepped Carla, as beautiful as ever. She'd filled out a little and her tits were so swollen and ripe I would've eaten them there in the street. A man got out with her; he was about sixty and he kept moving his hands in front of him to hide the lump in his pants.
Carla didn't notice me, and she and the old guy were starting into the woods. I followed them, keeping a distance, and I had a wonderful idea. When they were pretty deep in the wood, they stopped at a small clearing and started kissing like crazy. I could hear the old man wheezing and tearing at Carla's dress. Finally they both got undressed, and I almost dropped a load down just looking at her. What a girl! She lay down on the ground and spread her legs wide and the man kept walking around looking at her, holding his cock in his hands.
This is no time for looking, I thought. And quickly, just like that time at van Drooft's, I got undressed back in the trees where I was. I stripped down to my briefs and my undershirt, and I walked out into the clearing. Carla saw, and just stared. So I pulled my briefs down to below my balls, and my rod stuck out in the air like a flagpole.
"You like it?" I yelled at her.
"Yes, yes, yes," she shrieked.
I tore my things off and went bounding across the clearing and lunged so that I fell square on top of her, knocking the breath out of both of us.
"Jean," she whimpered. "Jean, it's been so long...."
"It's still long," I told her and she began twitching and pulled her legs back so her twat was smack against my cock. I rubbed at her hard. I never knew a woman who'd get so wet in the cunt-like a load of mud. I sliced it at her and tore at her tits until she moaned.
"Oh, God," she sighed. "Put it in."
So I grabbed hold of it and rammed it up and up. The minute it was inside she started twitching and jumping, tearing her nails on my shoulders, squeezing her legs around me. She jumped and heaved and poked herself up and down. I took her ass in my hands and rubbed away at the meat. I felt like I was going to shoot her cunt to pieces, and she wanted me to do it. I banged away, pounded, slid it in and out, and then our mouths were together and we were both coming like race-horses. Hooray, hooray! At the moment, we leaped together into the air and rolled over and over in the grass, and we ended up with her on top of me.
I had my eyes closed so I thought it was her shaking at me for more, and I can tell you I was ready for more. I poked it up and down a little. Then I looked up, feeling her get very heavy on me and I saw the old guy had climbed on Carla and had rammed himself right up her ass. He was grinding away and biting at her shoulders, and she was bouncing up and down on me. I just lay there still and let them take care of all movements. It was lovely to feel the old man's balls slamming against mine and Carla's juice running down to my behind. All three of us went wild together,, leaping like mad into the air.
When we were done, the old man hopped off, and I pushed Carla away and stood up.
"Listen, here," I said to the man. "What the hell do you think you're doing to my wife?"
"Your wife, sir?" he asked.
"Sure. I don't mind who puts it in her cunt, but her ass-hole happens to be my personal university. Who died and left you professor?"
"But I had no idea-"
"I'm not asking for ideas. I want to know where you think you get off-"
"I assure you, I had no idea the lady was married."
"Married is not the point. What I'm talking about is her brown study. What are your ideas doing in there?"
"There happened to be no signs forbidding the use of the cherished place, and since it was looking up at me with such an unoccupied expression, I thought the kindest thing would be to fill it."
"So you 'thought'? So you had ideas? And what do you think your long pink thing is, a text-book?"
"I'm terribly sorry about this-"
"Sorry isn't going to do anyone good. For your knowledge, I think it's only right that you pay your tuition."
"Do you mean-"
"Exactly. How many times have you entered the university?" Carla said: "At least a dozen."
"That'll be a hundred francs a session: twelve hundred francs in all. And I hope this'll teach you a lesson."
"I don't have twelve hundred francs-"
"How much do you have?" I asked, racing to his clothes before he could get there. In his wallet I found two thousand francs and some change. I left him the change to get home with.
"I think you'd better run along now," I said to him.
"I certainly intend to. I never realized Carla was involved in this kind of thievery."
"Thievery?" Carla asked.
"What else would you call it?" the old man said. "Education," she said.
"In that case, you ought to pay me for having taught you a thing or two."
That got me interested. "What did you teach her?"
"I taught her the pleasures of love made while standing on one's head."
"What a load that is!" I said, not believing him at all.
"It's true," Carla said.
"So teach it to me."
"No," said the old man. "You'll probably take my change away under the pretext that you've taught me to do it while you watched."
"Go on and do it," I said, "or I'll tear your balls off."
What he did was, he picked Carla up, kicked all their clothes into a little pile beside a tree, and then turned Carla upside down, her head resting on the clothes, her body leaning against the tree. Then the old guy took a quick jump and landed on his head, and leaned his body against the tree. He and Carla wriggled their bodies up together and he pushed his cock into her twat. They couldn't do much jumping, but just swayed a little and he kept edging his rod in deeper. Their faces were red with the blood in their heads. They began to sway faster, both of them grunting like crazy. Carla's juice dripped along their bellies. They jiggled away at it and after a few minutes, I could tell they were coming. They both sounded like pigs. Then, suddenly, they came, and they both went flipping over in a dead faint to the ground.
They came out of it in a few seconds. "I want to try it," I said. "You'll have to wait a minute," said Carla. So I passed the time by shoving my face into her cunt and slobbering away at it. Slop, slop. Nothing like a woman's cunt well-oiled with her own and a man's juice. A real meal of meat and wine. So I ate, and she went on panting with excitement. "Now," she said, "I'm ready."
The old man turned her over against the tree, and then he turned me over too and shoved me a little since I couldn't move. Carla reached up, took hold of my cock, and put the head into her cunt. Then we both pushed and it sank in to the bottom.-The old man put my arms around her so I could play with her ass.
I was getting dizzier every second. My whole body was pounding like a pulse, like one great big throbbing cock. We edged in and out, and I was feeling dizzy and sick, and at the same time more excited than I'd ever been. I felt as if my. rod were swelling to an enormous size and would bust wide open. Her ass in my hands was like hot iron. We swayed slowly, and I was on the edge of fainting. And then, suddenly, at the moment I was coming, I went into a faint and my whole body heaved, and I shook and trembled. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
I didn't feel myself fall to the ground. I was just lost in the coming which seemed to go on and on, like my whole body was oozing.
When I woke up, the old man was gone. He'd pulled his clothes out from under us and had taken his money back. But I didn't care. It was certainly worth the money to have learned about this.
"Are you all right?" I asked Carla.
"Yes. Wasn't it wonderful?"
"Great stuff."
"He's always having upside-down parties. Everyone gets upside-down, all squeezed together, all fucking each other. It's really marvelous. But now, I suppose, he'll never want to see me again."
"So what? We'll have our own parties. Don't you like me better than him?"
"Of course I do," she said, and to prove it, that mouth of hers started working away at my cock.
We fucked once more and then got dressed and left the wood. We took a' taxi back to the center of Paris and went to a bar, and drank and talked about old times. I told her I wished I didn't know her so I could rape her again.
"I'm just in the mood for a rape," I said. "Well, if you can't rape me, why don't you rape someone eke? I'll help you."
"You will?"
"Yes, but not just yet. I'd like to rest up a bit from our adventure in the woods."
"All right. Well, tell me what you've been doing all these years I haven't seen you."
She smiled. "I've been fucking."
"All the time?"
"At nights, anyway. I've had some wonderful men."
"I'll bet they weren't as good as me."
"Oh, no, heavens!"
"Tell me, Carla. You like my cock?"
"Are you serious? You know I'm wild about it."
"Tell me more."
"What do you want me to say?" She reached under the table and dug her hands into my fly and began playing with my cock. "It's not the kind of thing you talk about. You use it. It uses you."
"I know, but tell me about it."
"It's tremendous. It's the longest one I've ever seen. Also the thickest. It's shaped perfectly. It's as hard as a diamond, as red as a flame. It shatters me and seers me." She paused. "Now, you tell me about my cunt."
I reached up her dress and shoved three fingers right up her hole. "That's what I tell you about it," I said. "Is that all you have to say?"
I dug another finger in, and she said, "Now you're talking my language."
I said, "Now, tell me about my balls."
She left go of my cock and began to play around with my nuts.
"I've told you," she said
"No, no. Real words, I mean."
"You're so conceited," she said.
"Conceited?" I said. Imagine anyone calling me that! "Why, you cunt-faced little cock-sucker!"
"Never mind all this talk," she said. "I want some action. Let's go out and find someone for you to rape."
"Good idea. But I still don't like your calling me conceited. You be careful what you say or you'll be out the best beef any girl ever had."
So then we went out and walked around for an hour or so, until we found a good dark street. We strolled up the street until we found a house-door that was open and we walked through to see if the courtyard was a good place for rape. It turned out to be a little garden and Carla sat down on the ground. She said:
"A girl couldn't ask to be raped in a more comfortable place. I wish it was me you were raping."
"How can I rape you?" I asked her. "You're the easiest fuck in Paris. And you know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think I didn't even rape you the first time. I think you raped me.' That's how anxious for it you were."
She laughed and I squeezed her tits.
"Push your cock in between them," she said.
I did that, and she rolled her tits and got me so worked up, I wanted to jump right in her.
"Well," she said. "You're in the perfect mood now for a rape."
We left the garden and stood at the door of the house waiting for someone to come by. But it was late and no one passed for a quarter of an hour.
"Shit," I said. "I guess it's no use."
"Sh-" she whispered. "Here comes someone now."
I looked up the street, and I saw a woman walking toward us. When she finally got up close, I turned to Carla and said:
"She's a whore. No use raping her."
The woman turned to us.
"You don't have to rape me, honey," the woman said.
I saw she wasn't talking to me, but to Carla. She was a pretty good-looking woman, about forty, with a fleshy face and thick lips; she kept pushing her meaty tongue out between her lips. She wore a thin blouse that was easy to see through even in the middle of the night and on a dark street. Under the blouse were a pair of thick tits that ended in big brown nipples. I reached out and, through the blouse, took one of the nipples between my fingers. It was as stiff as a cock.
"My name's Marie, darling; what's yours?" she said to Carla and rubbed her hand across Carla's chest.
"My name's Carla," she said. "And this is Jean."
Then Marie pushed me away and backed Carla up against the door, and they started kissing. Being left out of it, I fondled Marie's fat ass.
I said: "Let's go into the garden in back."
"That's a good idea," said Carla.
So we went back to the garden and all got stripped down. Marie was a real piece. I couldn't keep my hands off her hips and thighs and I was dying for a feel of her cunt. We all got down on the grass and formed a circle: Marie's cunt was shoved in my face; Carla's cunt was in Marie's face; and my cock was in Carla's mouth. We all went at it busily. Marie had a terrific used up old hole-as big and stinking as a sewer, and it ran like a faucet. You should've seen me licking it up. But she hardly even noticed because she was so busy working away at Carla. Her hands kept grabbing Carla's tits and pulling at them. My own hands were all over Marie; I could dig my fingers right into all that soft meat.
Finally I decided I'd like to slip it into Marie, so I got my cock free from Carla and I jumped on Marie who was still busy cunt-sucking. Her knees drew back and the big purple split stood up waiting for me. I obliged her and zoomed my rod right into her. Well, I have a long thick one, but two like mine could've had room in Marie. But I know how to take care even of such flabby cunts and I wriggled and shoved and she loved it. Meanwhile, Carla moved around so that, while she kept Marie's head between her legs, she could put her face right against my ass. And while I was pumping away, I felt her tongue licking in and out of my hole. I was a lovely treat. And the moment I creamed up in Marie, Carla drove her tongue deep in my ass-hole and it was terrific.
Afterwards we sat and talked and all the time Marie kept her hand in Carla's cunt.
"I'm glad I met up with you two," Marie said. "I hope we'll have lots of pleasant meetings."
Carla took a little nibble at Marie's tit.
"I tell you what," I said. "You girls can work for me, and then we can all be together very often."
"What kind of work?" asked Marie.
"The same kind of work you've been doing all your life."
"And how much will I get for it?"
"You'll get some good fucking out of me and some good sucking out of Carla."
"But a girl can't live on love, darling. How'll I pay my rent?"
"You'll get one-third of every amount. I get from a client you take on."
"How much will that be?" she asked suspiciously.
"It depends on how much I think we can milk a client for."
"I don't know. I like a more definite arrangement."
"You stupid twat," I said. "You'll have twice as much business as you ever had. Who wants to fuck an old shit like you walking around in the streets?"
"You did, for one."
"But I wouldn't pay for it. But if you work for me, see, I get the money out of the client first then bring him around to you. Then he has to like you, because he's already paid for it."
"Well ... " She was considering.
"I'll work for you, Jean," said Carla. "And needless to say, I won't expect any money for it. Of course, I hope you'll see I get interesting types. I don't want someone who'll just shove it in, then leave." She turned to Marie. "You want to work for Jean, don't you, Marie?"
"I don't know...."
"Well, then, take your hand away from me until you do know."
"Oh, all right," Marie said.
So then the three of us all crawled together to seal the contract and, since it was dawn, Carla said we ought to call it a night.
That's how Carla came to be one of my employees. And she was a big success right from the beginning. She could take on five men in an hour and she could work steadily from midnight until dawn. I could ask really high prices for her. And she was pretty smart at getting more money out of her men than they'd paid to me before climbing on her. She'd say that for another hundred francs she'd show them something special like putting her nipples up their ass. Her piece de resistance, of course, was the upside-down job and for that she'd ask as high as two thousand francs a time. And every franc she earned went right to me. She never took a franc for herself. Sometimes I'd say:
"You know, Carla, I wouldn't mind if you kept part of the money for yourself."
"Good heavens, Jean, I don't need the money. I love the work and I enjoy helping you out."
"You're an angel, that's what you are."
"And besides, all the payment I want is just a good fuck from you at least once a night."
And she always got it too. And one night every week would be devoted just to each other. Sometimes Marie would join us, but I liked to keep her out of it because when she was around I hardly ever got a chance at Carla's cunt.
Well, this happy life went on for just about two years. My business grew tremendously during that time because the war had broken out and there were soldiers all over the place. Now and then Carla would take on three or four at a time and make a big happy family out of a bunch of foreign soldiers.
I don't know how long our life together would have gone on if the Germans hadn't invaded. But then Carla got scared for her kid and she told me she was sorry but she was leaving Paris, going south.
"You're crazy," I said. "There's probably a mint to be made out of the German army."
"Not through me, Jean. Don't you know the German army's all queer."
"Is that true?"
"That's what I hear."
"Thanks for telling me. I guess I better get busy recruiting up an army of men for them."
The night before Carla left Paris we had a wild time. We stood on our heads for about two hours and fucked, fucked, fucked. By the time she left I was so dizzy, I forgot to say goodbye.
After that, for a whole week I went around Paris getting myself picked up by men and making them work for me. I was getting ready for the invasion, and by the time it came, I had eighteen men working for me.
I never saw Carla after that. As a matter-of-fact, I often wondered what became of her. I thought maybe she was killed in the war, because otherwise, after the liberation, I'm sure if she was alive, she'd have come running back to me for more....
"Well," I said to Dupont, "she was alive, I'm sure of that."
"But how could she've gone on without me?"
"That I don't know. Maybe she found someone else."
"Someone else!" he said scornfully. "No one else could make her jump the way I did."
"It seems, however, that she loved me."
"Love, love-who's talking about love? I'm talking about good, uncomplicated fucking." Hr looked at hi' watch. "It's late. I'll have to run along now. But, say, maybe you'd like me to fix up for the night-free of charge, of course: with my compliments. Any friend of Carla is a friend of mine. What do you go for?"
"Rose."
"Rose who?"
"The gill at the hotel where you used to live. She's the one who gave me your address."
"She's a good screw all right. Go right ahead. Tell her it's on the house."
We shocks hands and separated. I went back to the hotel where Rose was and climbed the steps to her room. The door was open again and I looked in and saw her lying on the bed, naked as before.
"My God," she said. "I thought you'd never come back."
"Your friend's gone."
"Yes. Did you see Jean?" I nodded.
"Any message for me?" she asked.
"Just that you were mine for the evening-with the compliments of the house."
"Get undressed," she said, rubbing the bush of hair on her loins. "I'm hot for you, honey."
I tore my clothes off and threw myself beside her on the bed. Pressing my throbbing cock against her belly, our mouths met, my hand stroking between her thighs.
"I can't wait," she said. "Fuck me quickly. Fuck me."
And with the instinct of a pigeon returning to its coop, my penis went gliding stiffly into Rose.
FIVE
Less than twenty-four hours, after my conversation with Jean Dupont, I was in an airplane bound for Nice. Since it was raining when we took off at Orly, the trip was not a pleasant one-the sky was thick with clouds, the plane bumped a great deal, and a good number of passengers were sick. Past Lyons, however, the sky began to clear, and by the time we crossed the Maritime Alps, visibility was perfect. Villages appeared .below, the bright sun beamed in the glass-blue sky, and in the distance the calm Mediterranean began to loom up.
We had a perfect weather when we landed at Nice airport. I took a taxi to Cannes, and checked in at the Hotel Superior where I was given a splendid room facing on the bay. It was only seven o'clock in the evening and the sun was still hot-over the sea; a few bathers were out swimming or idling on the shore. Leaving my room, I had a drink at the bar downstairs, and then asked the attendant where I might find rue de la Mer in Cannes.
"It's a five minutes' walk from the hotel," he told me, and then gave me specific directions.
Rue de la Mer was not difficult to find. It was, like most of the streets in Cannes, very narrow and rather dark. As soon as I had emerged on the street, I once more examined Carla's list, found the house number and the name of the man. I continued walking to the end of the road and there found that the house corresponding to the number on my list was surrounded by a high stone wall. Well-kept double wooden doors were slightly ajar in the wall and I pushed them open and stepped through into the front garden. The ground was all cultivated; flowers of every color and variety grew thick around me. Going up to the front door, I pressed the buzzer.
Almost immediately, the door swung open and the butler looked out at me. "Is this the home of Charles Bonnet?" I asked. "Yes, sir."
"May I speak with Monsieur Bonnet, please?"
"I shall have to see if Monsieur Bonnet is at home," he said rather snobbishly. "Who is calling, please?"
"Howard Cunningham, a friend of Carla."
He looked at me with suspicion. "Would you be good enough to wait a moment, please?"
And he closed the door in my face. The butler's behavior annoyed me, but I did not deny the fact that his rudeness may have been justified, for seven-thirty in the evening is an odd time for an uninvited visitor to come calling.
After a moment, the butler returned:
"Monsieur Bonnet will see you," he said.
I followed him into the house, and he led me through several corridors and out to a sort of winter garden which emerged upon the magnificent gardens in back of the house that had a view on the sea. A dozen people sat in a wide uneven circle, more or less round a long table covered with glasses, bottles, packages of cigarettes, and various appetizers. The atmosphere was one of luxury and laziness.
As I stepped out into the garden, one man stood up and came forward.
"Mr. Cunningham?" he asked. "Yes."
"I'm Charles Bonnet. Please come and sit down."
I followed him to the table and he introduced me to his guests and to his wife, Louise, an angry-looking but attractive woman in her early thirties. Bonnet himself was older, possibly in his middle fifties; he was a trim, wiry little man with gray hair and a gray moustache.
I sat down with him and his wife at a distance from the others.
"What will you take to drink?" he asked me.
I told him, and he went off to bring me a glass. I was left alone with his wife who seemed uninterested in speaking to me but stared straight into my eyes. She was a most attractive woman: fair-haired with black eyes and golden skin. Her thin summer dress had buttons all the way down the front; the buttons were open along her chest and a good deal of her very white breasts was exposed; in fact, when she breathed, little crescents of pink revealed themselves on either side and the breasts themselves seemed to become inflated.
"Here you are," said Bonnet bringing me my drink and seating himself opposite me.
I wondered how to open the conversation about Carla, particularly with Bonnet's wife sitting there, but this was momentarily postponed by Bonnet's asking me:
"Have you been in Cannes very long, Mr. Cunningham?"
"No. I only arrived this evening."
"Ah, a real newcomer."
"Not exactly. I've been here several times before-although I've never actually stayed in the city."
"And you'll be staying here now?"
"Not for very long. A day or two, at most."
"That is very sad," said Louise Bonnet, and breathed so deeply I thought her nipples would pop out of her dress. "This is really the perfect time to be in Cannes before the tourists and the very hot weather arrive."
"I know that," I said, "but it can't be helped."
There was a silence which was not so much awkward as tentative. It was the time to explain my purpose.
"I suppose," I began, "you must be wondering about the point of my visit."
"I confess myself guilty of a certain amount of curiosity, Mr. Cunningham," said Bonnet.
"Well-may I speak bluntly?" I asked, facing Louise.
"Of course," she said.
"The subject of my visit is rather a delicate one. Perhaps it may be wiser if I could see you, Monsieur Bonnet, alone for a few minutes."
Louise Bonnet looked at me coldly. "My husband has no secrets from me," she said.
"That is quite correct, Mr. Cunningham. Please feel free to speak openly."
I hesitated, took a sip at my drink, and began: "I've come at the request of Carla."
"Carla who?" asked Bonnet.
"It isn't likely you knew her by her own name. In any case, it was Carla Arvon."
Bonnet seemed to be reflecting seriously. He looked off across the garden, his eyes resting on the darkening sea.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't recall having known anyone by that name."
"It's possible she used another name. She was a ravishingly beautiful woman with platinum-bluish hair, blue eyes-"
"Surely, Charles, you'd remember knowing a woman like that," Louise said to her husband.
"I imagine I would, but I'm afraid if I did know her I've completely forgotten her."
"She has sent you to see my husband?"
"In a way. You see, she's dead. She left a letter for me asking to see several old friends. Monsieur Bonnet is one of the names she left me."
"Perhaps," said Bonnet, "there is another man in Cannes with the same name."
"She also left your address," I said.
"I see ... " He paused thoughtfully. "How very odd. Were she and I supposed to have been good friends?"
"I haven't any idea. But the others on her list remembered her quite readily."
"Really, Charles," said Louise. "It's un likely the woman would have bothered about someone she hardly knew."
"Yes, of course," he agreed. "But I honestly cannot recall her. I'm awfully sorry about this, Mr. Cunningham. I should have been very happy to help you-"
"It isn't terribly important. In any case I'll be staying on in Cannes for another day or two, and if you should remember anything about her, you can reach me at the Hotel Superior. I hope you'll forgive me for having barged in on you this evening."
"Not at all," said Bonnet. "I'm delighted to have met you. For those of us who live all year in Cannes, it's always a pleasure to see a new face before the season begins."
"Yes," said Louise. "Could you come here for lunch tomorrow?"
Td like very much to."
"Good," she said. "Come around noon. Lunch is always informal. If you go swimming in the morning it's perfectly all right to come here in your trunks."
I shook hands with them both, aware of the warm pressure of Louise's fingers. Then, together, they showed me through the house and to the front door.
On the way back to my hotel, I tried to puzzle out the situation. Was this an additional twist of Carla's perversity? Had she planned this as a wild goose chase? It seemed likely, or at least possible, and yet I hadn't been convinced by Bonnet's denial. Well, I could try again at lunch the next day; I would have to plan my strategy carefully, try to insert something in the conversation that was peculiarly like Carla.
As it turned out, however, planning became unnecessary because the desk-clerk at the hotel gave me two telephone messages with my key. The first was from Bonnet:
Yes, of course, I remember Carla. I will meet you in the lobby of your hotel tonight at eleven and will tell you what you want to know.
The second message quite astonished me, for it was from Louise Bonnet. She said:
I will be waiting for you in the garden at two in the morning. I look forward to seeing you.
The desk-clerk smiled as I read this note, and I frowned at him and went up to my room. No sooner had I gone up than I realized how hungry I was. I washed, went downstairs, returned my key, and sought out a restaurant I had dined in years before. I ate a great deal, and ate very slowly, but, still, it was not quite ten o'clock when I went out to stroll along the promenade over the beach.
Here and there, below me, I heard the squeals and grunts of lovers mingling with the roar of the sea. And my thoughts mingled too: the story that Bonnet would tell me of his relations with Carla; and Louise waiting in the garden, her breasts bulging out of her dress, the pink flush of nipple tautening under my kiss. Ultimately, in my thoughts at least, Louise was naked in the garden, and she waited for me to take her, to throw her into a bed of flowers and join my flesh with hers. The image of our mating so excited me that I had to pause in my stroll in order to calm down.
I leaned upon the railing and looked down at the beach. Below me, a boy and a girl-neither of them could have been more than sixteen-lay pressed against each other in wet bathing suits. The girl's suit had been pulled down beneath her breasts and the two young globes were as small and lovely as little waves. One pink nipple was in the boy's mouth, and she stroked his back and sighed.
Suddenly he lifted his arms and began tugging at her bathing suit. It clung tightly to her body, and he pulled roughly, passionately.
"Don't," she whimpered. "You're hurting me."
But he continued to pull the suit down her hips until her soft, gently swelling belly emerged. He put his lips to it and then pulled her suit down further, down to her thighs. The triangle of hair appeared and he kissed it, then moved her bathing suit down her thighs, along her knees and calves, and the girl herself kicked it away. The boy's face disappeared between the girl's thighs, and he had turned himself so that his covered loins were beside her mouth. Gently, she pulled his trunks down, and I heard her sigh as his penis jumped out at her, its thick head nudging at her lips. Her lips patted, and she took the length of him into her mouth, and her face was buried in his hair. They went on this way for several moments, then they separated and turned so that their faces met and their bodies were pressed together. They kissed while his hand stroked between her legs.
"Let me," the boy said, moving his mouth from hers. "I'm afraid. I've never done it before."
"There's nothing to be afraid of. Just relax."
"Will you stop if it hurts me."
"If you want me to."
On his knees, the boy moved between the girl's outspread legs. Slowly, he raised her knees until they were folded back against her body, and the young undamaged part of her was stretched and waiting. The boy moved forward, took his penis in his hand and guided its head to her slit; he slid it back and forth and the girl groaned with pleasure. The tip of his penis lay at the threshold of her sheath, and he shoved gently, then out, and again a little more deeply, and pulled it away.
"Put it all in," the girl cried.
The boy lunged forward, dropping himself upon her, and his shaft ripped relentlessly into the girl. She gave one long gasp of agony.
"Take it out," she cried.
He worked at her for a few seconds until he knew the pain had given way to pleasure, and then he said: "Do you want me to take it out?"
"No, no," she whispered, grinding her body under him.
At that point, with belated discretion, I left the children to their fun.
I returned to my hotel just before eleven and sat in the lobby until Bonnet arrived.
"You will forgive all this subterfuge," he said by way of greeting. "I will explain it all presently. I have my car outside. We can drive over to a nice place I know outside the city. It would be mote convenient to talk there."
I followed him out to his car, and no sooner had we climbed in when he drove off in the direction of Juan-let-Pins.
"The truth of the matter," he began rather' breathlessly, "is that my wife is a very jealous woman and It was not until after our marriage that she learned of my somewhat outrageous past. Since she found this out, she decided that for every woman I had before our marriage, she will have a man. Consequently, the virgin has turned harlot and the lecher has turned saint. It is all a bit trying, so naturally I try not to let her know-or a least to keep her knowledge limited-of my activities in the years or decades before our marriage."
"That's why you pretended not to remember Carla."
"Naturally. Needless to say, I remember her perfectly. And I also know exactly why you are here. She told me you'd come."
"She's dead, you know."
"So I understood from what you said before. I'm sorry to hear that."
"You haven't seen her in some time, I take it."
"Good heavens, no. Not since the war ended. Ours was, if you forgive the irony, a wartime romance. We met because of war; we separated because of peace. It was just as well; we felt little more than lust for each other, and were kept together by our common interests."
"Which were sex."
"To put it mildly. By the time I met Carla, ordinary sexual relations were a rather tedious appetizer for her. It was the variation that counted. She could go to bed with a dozen men, one after the other, or all at once, and still not find the thrill she was looking for."
"And what was the thrill?"
He shrugged. When one is as debauched as she was, can there be any thrills left? Well, whatever sensations the body can experience, Carla experienced." He paused; then: "Here we are. Just down the road."
He parked the car in the lot of a large building rather like a hunting lodge. We went round back where a large terrace with tables and chairs stretched down to the sea. There were a few people about, and the place was lit by dim blue lights. Bonnet led me to' a table at the extreme end of the terrace, a few yards from the sea. Here we were alone.
"Out there," said Bonnet, pointing seaward, "all through the war was a large yacht where Carla and I spent many evenings. We used to get a motor-boat from this very terrace out to the yacht. It was an extraordinary boat, but I'll tell you about it presently.
"First let's order something to drink."
We decided on a bottle of champagne. When it came, we toasted the memory of Carla, lit cigarettes, and I settled back in my chair preparing to hear Bonnet's tale. He took another sip of wine, and began:
We met in 1943, in the very hottest days of summer. I enjoy swimming at night; I always have. What I like to do is to take my car and drive along the coast until I find a spot that pleases me. Then, I park at once, take my clothes off and go for a good long swim in the warm sea.
The night I met Carla, I had done just that I had parked at a strip of lonely beach not far from here; I undressed, leaving my clothes in the car, and I went down the short pebbled beach to the edge of the water.
I remember still how warm the water was as I walked outward and began swimming. I swam for about a quarter of an hour before looking shoreward; when I did look back to the beach, I saw that I was roughly a hundred yards west of the place where I had parked my car. Since I was a bit breathless, I decided to begin swimming back at once, very slowly, so that I would not exhaust myself.
But then suddenly I saw a woman standing on the beach. Naturally I couldn't, at that distance, see anything of her face or figure, but I could make out the strange movements of her arms which she held above her head as if offering herself to someone with the greatest abandon. She was alone, however; so curious was I that I made my way gently toward the shore.
As I approached, I saw that she was naked. Her body was superb, covered with shadows, dark and sparkling; her breasts were full and tantalizing, and her nipples were ripe berries. She stood, as I said, with her arms raised and waving slightly; her round succulent belly was thrust forward, writhing sensually. Moaning passionately, she lowered her arms, and each of her hands began robbing one of her nipples, stroking them until they grew stiff. She dropped one of her hands to her thighs and it inched its way to the mound of hair, then darted between her legs.
Here obviously was a woman who needed a man!
Pushing myself forward, I emerged upon the beach behind her. I walked toward her silently and when I was back of her, I reached round and cupped my hands over her full breasts, pulling us so close together that my hot erection lay along the length of the cool split between her buttocks. She seemed not at all surprised, but pushed back at me and writhed her bottom. I dropped one of my hands from her breasts and led it across her full cool belly and across the roundness of her thighs. Her thighs spread to admit my hand. Within, she was already moist: a hot, raw jelly oozed upon my hand.
Abruptly she spun round and put her mouth to mine, her tongue digging between my teeth. I felt her pulling at me, and with one jerk, both of us toppled over, Carla falling backwards to the sand with me on top of her. Our mouths remained together; I bit her lips hungrily, circled my tongue in the hollow of her cheeks.
She moved her head aside: "Bite me," she said. "Beat me."
I obeyed her; moving across each inch of her body, I took bits of flesh in my teeth and bit until I feared I might tear her apart.
"Harder," she'd cry.
And my teeth sank deeper into her. Slowly, I covered her breasts, biting, tearing, ripping, until the pale globes were blue with bruises. Then into her armpits, snapping my teeth into the hairy meat, then to her abdomen-a smooth, glowing swell of flesh from which I made her blood flow. I covered her thighs and calves with bites, her buttocks, the small of her back and at last prepared myself for the most delicious meal of all.
Her legs went wide apart; her knees drew up and offered me the tangle of her loins. I sank my face' against her woman and ate savagely, my teeth clamping upon a bit of fire-hot meat and gnawing at it until she screamed. Brutish and impassioned, my hands clutched at the sand, pebbles, and broken shells around us, and taking masses of it I rubbed it on her body and into her gluey loins, pushing it into her wide wet canal, and then underneath, forcing the debris into the tight passage of her anus.
She was mad with desire and I threw myself upon her and pushed my penis through the web of roughness, inserting myself all the way into her. The sand burned my penis, giving it a sensation I had never before experienced. Carla screamed and shrieked and sighed in a mixture of agony and outrageous joy. Her legs locked me into her, and she heaved so that we began to toll, over and over, across the harsh, pebbly beach. Locked together in a searing embrace, we rolled without end, down the beach to the water. We spun into the water and were covered by the warm delicate breakers.
Then, when we were completely submerged, we stopped rolling. My hands grasped her breasts and pinched mercilessly, and I drove my member in and out of her, thumping wildly into the depths of her body, driving her and myself to the ultimate of pleasure. Our juices mingled with the liquids of the sea, and after the orgasm, we were so weakened that a wave sucked us apart.
When I could get to my feet, I saw that she had managed to drag herself up the beach and was lying, panting, on a blanket I had not seen before. I went over to her, lay down upon the blanket, and we were silent for some time.
At last she broke the silence: "Thank you. That was marvelous."
"Don't mention it. It was my pleasure, I assure you."
"Do you Live around here?" she asked me. "In Cannes. And you?"
"I have a villa in the mountains. I drive down at nights to go swimming."
"And to have an adventure."
"Yes, but. I rarely have one."
"I should think a woman like you would have men at her feet."
She laughed. "Few men swim at night. And in such isolated spots."
"You always come to this same place?"
"No. I usually go to different beaches. In fact, I've never been here before."
"But I hope you'll come back again."
"I certainly will-if you'll be here."
She reached across the blanket and took my penis in her warm hand.
"How heavy it is," she said.
"That's because it's full."
"Full?"
"Full of juice that must be emptied into you-to fill you with."
"I'm afraid," she smiled, "there wasn't enough juice in the world to fill me with. I'm the container doomed always to be larger than the things I must contain."
"Not quite. I think I filled you quite nicely only a few moments ago."
"How long ago that was! So long, I can barely remember."
"Then I must prove it to you once more."
And I edged myself close of her and took her in my arms.
"I want to suck you," she said and slid herself around. Her puckered lips fir themselves over the head of my penis and the tip of her tongue flickered across my opening. Then her mouth moved slowly forward until my entire shaft was buried in the warm plum of her throat. I moved my own face until it was lodged in the hair of her loins. Her flesh was smooth now, for the debris had been washed in the water. I lapped at her lazily, my tongue trailing along her groove from her mound to her anus. I licked at the clitoris, then bit it, and she reciprocated by biting at my penis. My tongue lay at the opening of her hole and I thrust it in and out like little lizard darts, then pushed in as far as I could; I savored the hundred flavors of her wet interior.
When we broke apart, she got on all fours and beckoned to me to get behind her. I did and I saw the gentle droop of her moist hair-lips. I led my instrument between them, pushing it to the twitching mouth of her vagina. I entered slowly, and she thrust herself back upon me: we were once again sealed together. I reached round her, catching her breasts in my hands, and we started swaying, forward and backward. I slid one hand from her breasts to her crack, to the place where my penis was buried in her. With my fingernail I scratched at her, just above the place of contact. I scratched gently at first, then with increasing ferocity, and as the tearing increased so did her passion, and she was thumping backwards against me as though her loins must swallow all of me. I scratched and she pushed until I felt our parts bursting upon each other, swollen with hot passion. At the moment of our climax, I reached both hands into her loins and. tore at her like a madman. She screamed at the top of her lungs and pumped wildly back at me until our explosion ended.
She sank down on her belly with me on top of her, and we lay breathing heavily for some time.
"Would you like to go to a party?" I asked, climbing off her.
"What kind of party?"
"The kind you'd enjoy."
"I'd love to. Where is it?"
"On a yacht out in the bay not far from Juan-les-Pins."
"Can I be back here by five in the morning."
"What's your hurry? It's after two now."
"I like to be at home for my little girl."
"Well, all right. We can be back at five if you like. The yacht's only about twenty minutes from the shore."
She dressed and we walked over to my car where I put my things on.
"My car isn't far from here," she said.
"Well, we can go in mine, and I'll drive you back here later on."
Perhaps I should explain now that ail these luxuries cost an inordinate amount of money. Gasoline-in fact, the whole operation of an automobile-was maintained by paying fantastic sums of money to the Germans. Even the maintenance of the yacht was upheld by consent of the occupying forces; for that reason there was no danger of having the law come down on that boatload of degeneracy. It was not until the war ended that the yacht's life came to a close.
Well, Carla and I drove to this very terrace where several motor-boats always waited to take members out to sea. I showed my membership card and paid for Carla's entry, and then we climbed into the boat and were motored out to sea.
"This is all very exciting," said Carla.
"Just wait until you get to the yacht."
"What happens there?"
"Everything. Whatever you want you can have."
Carla sat close beside me, my arms around her, my hand fondling her breasts. A fresh salt breeze blew flecks of foam into our faces. It was not until we were a couple of minutes away from the yacht that its form became apparent to us.
"But it's an enormous boat," said Carla.
"It used to belong to a wealthy Oriental prince. But he deserted it when the war broke out and it was taken over by a group of-what shall I call them?-sensualists. This group divided the boat into various sections in an attempt to accommodate people with even the most un likely tastes. But here we are now, and in a moment you'll be seeing it all for yourself."
A small elevator compartment had been lowered from the deck at the approach of our boat, and Carla and I climbed in and were pulled upward.
"Good evening, Monsieur Bonnet," the attendant said.
"Good evening. This is Mademoiselle Carla."
"I'm delighted to meet you. I hope you will find some entertainment to your taste," he said.
"I'm sure I will," replied Carla.
We went to the main door, through the lobby and into the cloakroom. As usual, the two cloak attendants were at the desk: a young man and a young woman, both naked.
"We leave our things here," I told Carla, and we both proceeded to undress.
Naked, we continued into the grand hall, a large nightclub affair where everyone from musicians to waiters was completely nude.
"Oh, this is wonderful," cried Carla.
She stood for a while observing dancing couples, some of whom were dancing in the very midst of the love act. One man waltzed while the girl in his arms had her legs wound around him and their loins were linked together. In other parts of the hall, people ate, drank, talked, copulated, urinated, defecated-in fact did anything their hearts desired.
"Would you like to dance?" I asked Carla.
"Later perhaps. I'm so anxious to see the rest of the boat."
"Well, come along out to the passageway."
I led her down to the lower deck where we stopped before a door from behind which came the most excruciating screams.
"What goes on in here?" she asked. "Come in and see."
I pushed the door open, and no sooner had we crossed the threshold when we were attacked by a dozen people all carrying sticks, whips, or other instruments. The large room was filled with people, some beating, others being beaten; couples lay together on couches or on the floor while men and women flogged them or trod on them. Individuals were chained to the walls or hanging by their thumbs or tied to the wheel or lain upon spikes or roped to a cross. And for every tortured person there was a torturer.
"I rarely frequent this room," I shouted to Carla, trying to push my assailants away.
But I was lost to Carla. Passionate cries came from her as she yielded her body to the whips, writhing and turning so that no part of her would be left, as it were, undone. Her legs spread wide.
"Here," she shrieked. "Here. Beat me here."
And a monster of a man began lashing her cunt with all his might. His whip cut at her and she screamed and rejoiced, until it seemed that steam rose from her loins. The man threw himself upon her and drove his stupendous erection through her bruises. Others began to walk over them. A little woman came and forced her behind into Carla's face and left a small turd upon her lips.
"Kill me, I'm coming." Carla screamed, but at that moment the man withdrew his penis.
"Don't stop," she cried.
He stood above her, delighted with her frustrated passion. But another man jumped down to replace the first, and although he was much inferior to the other, he nevertheless brought Carla quickly to her satisfaction.
"Let's get out of hear," I said to her.
"All right," she said, halfheartedly, and I helped her to her feet and pulled her out of the room, slamming the door behind us.
"Wasn't that fun!" she exclaimed.
"Indeed, you seemed to enjoy yourself. But you're covered with blood."
"I don't mind. That's all part of the kick. What's all this?"
We were passing a row of doors.
"Oh, these are for people who want to be alone."
"No, that doesn't interest me just now. Let's go on to the parties."
We followed the passage to its end and then climbed some stairs, opened a door, and entered the menagerie.
"Doesn't it smell?" she said. "Just like a barn."
"That's really what it is."
And if there was a shortage of food in France, the yacht never wanted for the most delectable livestock. Here, in this chamber, were the lovers of the animal kingdom. The first couple we approached was a woman and a horse. She was fondling his length of scarlet penis, covering it with kisses, licking it; the horse whinnied delightedly. After a moment, the woman leaped up and threw her arms around the body of the horse, her legs out toward his rump.
"Help me, someone," she called.
I went over to her. "You'll never get it in," I said.
"I have before," she sighed feverishly. "Go on."
Carla came over then and took hold of the horse's rod and aimed it at the woman's hole. The woman squirmed and shimmied and, at last, with Carla's help, horse and woman made contact-in a limited way, of course. While the woman thrust herself about, Carla manipulated the rest of the stallion's shaft, and suddenly there was a burst of liquid spraying from the woman. The horse kicked ecstatically, and his mate groaned.
Carla and I continued on to other amorists.
One elderly man knelt behind a sheep, holding his penis in his hand, about to penetrate the animal's love-passage. Another man had covered his body with a coating of honey and lay on the floor while three boxers licked him. Nearby, a woman sat with a cat between her legs, and the animal lapped at her intensely. Further on, a young man submitted himself to the overtures of a calf; he was under the animal, pushing backwards, attempting to make a connection between the calf's penis and his own behind. Once again Carla came to love's aid. She directed the instrument to its home, and when contact had been made, she dropped to the floor and pushed her face into the man's groin, taking his tool in her mouth. The three of them maneuvered and labored, and I myself joined the party by dropping myself down and putting my lips to Carla's moist, sore loins.
Afterwards we went to the chicken-room, entering just in time to see someone perform the rites of love.
A man was there taking a beautiful squawking white hen from a large coop at one side of the room. He brought the hen to a chest of drawers not-far from where we stood. Then, with most experienced gestures, he thrust the hen's head into the drawer and shut the drawer upon her neck so that the animal was held in place. The chicken screamed and fluttered its wings. Unperturbed, the lover drew up behind her and broke his penis through the feathers and' flesh of the hen's canal. The animal screamed and shook in agony, and the man pumped at her passionately and fondled her feathers. At the man's climax, he thrust forward powerfully and the drawer snapped closed, decapitating the hen. The walls, the man's body, everything was covered with blood, and the headless chicken dropped to the ground, limped blindly round the floor an instant and fell dead at our feet.
"Like to try one?" the man asked me.
"No, thanks. I don't go very much for chickens."
"Eyfciyone to his taste. Personally, I'd rather fuck them than eat them."
And he went back to the coop to choose another mate for himself.
"Let's go," said Carla. "I think I've had enough of animals for tonight."
We continued on our excursion, but the next room was one to which Carla was not admitted: it was a room for men only.
"Oh, I'd like to see that." she said.
"I'm sorry, but you can't. You could never pass as a man."
"I feel cheated."
"Well, if you come around to the passageway on the side, there's a concealed window and you can see what it's like inside."
"That's better than nothing," she said.
We edged into the passageway and with the help of two chairs we could sec through the small window-airshaft at the top of the wall. The room was flooded with men in every conceivable posture. In one corner, constructed like an altar, a gigantic stone phallus stood, and its worshippers were everywhere. Daisy-chains extended all around the walls so that a perfect circle was formed: no bugger went unbuggered. The line swayed rhythmically, snake-like.
"Isn't it marvelous," said Carla, delighted.
Whenever a man broke the chain, another was recruited from the center of the room to complete it.
"The rumor is," I explained to Carla, "that the chain has never broken up in the three years since it has come into existence. It goes on night and day, a replacement coming for every man who leaves."
Within the circle of the chain, dozens of men swarmed upon the floor; it was an endless panorama of phalluses-phalluses lunging into mouths or anuses. One man in the center of the room seemed particularly resourceful. He was on all fours and was surrounded by others: he held a penis in each of his hands; one in his mouth; one in his behind; and at the same time his own instrument occupied the rectum of the man beneath-him.
"How I envy him," cried Carla.
"Why?"
"Well, I'd so much love to fuck and be fucked at the same time. But how impossible it is."
"You have certain consolations for this failure."
"Such as?"
'You can be fucked by two men at exactly the same time. And that is something no man can brag of."
"You think not?" she asked, pointing to the man in the center of the room who was now sandwiched between two others and both his lovers were digging their members into exactly the same receptacle at exactly the same time.
Disheartened, Carla climbed down from her chair and we continued on our journey.
The next room was one to which I could not be admitted, for here women made love among themselves.
"Good," said Carla. "That's for me."
She thrust open the door, there was a sudden rush of thick flesh, and a sharp delicious smell of female entered my nostrils. Then the door slammed shut. I went round the side to the ventilating window but three or four men were already crowded around it.
"Say, look at that beauty who just came in," one man said.
"She's the hottest one in the room," said another.
"Stop pushing," said a third. "I can't see."
Their eyes and penises bulged heatedly.
"What a cunt on her," said one and began thumping his member with excitement.
"Christ, this it too much for me."
"Me too. Let's get ourselves some live meat."
All the men-save the masturbating one-climbed down from their chairs and went off. Taking advantage of the vacancy, I jumped up and looked through the window. Truly, it was a paradise of women: fat ones and thin ones, short ones and tall ones, enormous-breasted ones and flat-chested ones, white ones and pink ones and black ones and-every color and variety: from Carla the sublime to a hideous-faced bony woman who raced around the room fondling breasts and buttocks, diving her face into dripping impassioned loins.
"Oh oh oh," moaned the man beside me, continuing to thump.
Carla was being treated like a goddess. A group of worshippers led her across the room to an onyx bathtub. Powders and perfumes of such strong scent were poured into the water that the aroma drifted to my nose. Two women lifted Carla and laid her gently into the mass of bubbles in the tub.
"I will bathe her," a woman shrieked.
"No, I."
"No, I."
"No, I."
And a battle seemed inevitable. A dozen female faces turned red with jealousy and rage, and soon they were at each other: arm and legs flailed, white teeth bit into fair flesh, long hair went flying, cunts were shredded by outraged fingernails, white breasts were colored with flecks of blood.
"Stop this at once!" a voice commanded, and the women broke apart.
A tall, beautifully built woman approached them; her bearing was military; her large breasts stood out grandly before her.
"I will bathe her," she said, and there was no more argument.
This amazon-like creature knelt beside the bathtub and covered Carla's face with kisses. Then she climbed into the tub and with infinite tenderness began to wash every part of Carla's body. The amazon's foamy hands stroked Carla's bruised shoulders, then lovingly massaged the breasts, pulling at the nipples gently. Suddenly her hands disappeared beneath the water and the other women moaned at the thought of the treasure their leader was exploring. Carla leaned her head back, a smile on her lips, and she gave herself up to the amazon's manipulations.
The man beside me was groaning heavily and I looked at him in time to see, a tremendous jet of cream spurt from his tool to the wall; he throbbed with his orgasm. When the wall was coated with his juice, he said:
"That's the twelfth time I've done it in two days."
"Really?"
"Yes. Eight times yesterday. Four times today: so far, that is."
"Masturbating."
"Yes."
"Why do you do it?" He shivered. "Because I love to." And he was once again pulling on his penis, bringing it to its full length.
When I turned back to the lesbian chamber I saw that Carla was now washing her bath-companion. Another woman approached the tub carrying a thick Turkish towel and Carla stepped out of the tub to be enfolded in the towel and the woman's arms. Each part of her body was patted in turn and when she stood naked her skin glowed.
A comb was brought by a plump old lady who proceeded to comb Carla's gorgeous hair until it hung soft and loose to her shoulders. Then the old woman knelt and combed the hair of Carla's loins, edging the comb between her thighs where her fingers took over.
After this, a pot of oil was brought and Carla's body was coated magically golden. Her beauty was unearthly. All activity had ceased in the room, and she was surrounded by admirers. A thousand loving hands reached out to touch her; lips were pressed to her oily flesh. At this point, the amazon, who had disappeared for several moments, returned, and strapped to her loins was a black rubber dildo whose proportions would have put any man to shame. At that instant, I actually feared for Carla's safety-although, in truth, she seemed singularly unperturbed by it.
She was lain to the floor and at once two women came to her. The first sat squarely on her face, thrusting her purple love-lips to Carla's mouth; the second squirmed into Carla's thighs and did to Carla what Carla did to the other. A dozen more women surrounded her, their tongues flickering across her body.
Carla was let alone. Two girls appeared and each took hold of one of Carla's round buttocks. They lifted her until her crack was wide and tantalizing with oils and her own juices. Her knees bent back; the amazon closed in and drove rhe dildo deep into Carla's body.
The lovers writhed ecstatically. Women crawled under them and over them fondling and licking any unoccupied space.
Carla trembled as the black mass dug in and out of her, I could hear her sobs of joy. Beside me, the masturbating man was rapidly approaching his thirteenth climax. Everyone seemed on the verge of madness. The chamber of women literally throbbed with orgasmic excitement; piles of female flesh rose as the lesbians heaped upon each other. My own passion came to such a pitch that I thought I must imitate my companion or die. I pulled at myself wildly and my chair shook; screams rose from everywhere; my heated rod was at bursting point. And then, at that moment, there was a universal climax. Carla screamed with her orgasm; the others joined with her; and simultaneously I and the man beside me unloaded a torrent upon the wall.
When I had recovered, I saw Carla lying impotent upon the floor of the room. The dildo was now being strapped to her loins, and obviously she was going to repay the amazon for the latter's kindness. What I saw this time was that the dildo was a double-edged weapon; that is, that a phallus was plunged. into Carla so that the larger one could stay in place. The rites were repeated, with everyone but myself participating as before. Even the man beside me, though with some difficulty, was working himself toward another repetition.
Soon afterwards, Carla emerged.
"Did you see?" she asked me.
"I certainly did."
"I was treated like a queen."
"And a king."
"That is a room I will often go to." She looked round suddenly and saw the masturbating man.
"What's he doing?" she asked me.
"I think it's quite obvious."
She approached him thoughtfully.
"Why don't you find yourself a partner?" she asked.
"I don't want one."
"Why not?"
"Because I like to jerk off."
She looked at his penis a while and said: "Let me touch it."
"No." He turned away from her.
"Please. It's a beautiful one. Wouldn't you like me to suck it a little?"
"No."
Reaching forward abruptly, she tried to grab hold of his enflamed member.
"Let him alone," I said to her.
"But I want him," she said passionately.
"Here, you can play with mine," I suggested.
"I'll play with yours later. Right now, I want to play with his."
"No, you can't," he told her firmly.
Enraged by her frustration, she screamed at the man and I had to drag her away.
"Calm down," I said. "There are still many rooms to be seen."
"I don't want to see anything else," she pouted. "Don't be such a child. Simply because a man refuses to let-"
"He's the first person who ever said no to me."
"Well, you can't expect to have a raving success with everyone. Come along now."
"No, I want to go home."
"You're ridiculous."
"I must go home. I'm probably late already."
"All right. I'll take you back to your car."
We returned along the way we had come, following the passageways and going up and down various decks, and at last we emerged once more in the grand ballroom. There were still a few people dancing but they were now dancing to phonograph records since the men in the band had come down to find themselves women. What went on here, at this point, was one huge melange of all that had been going on in the other rooms.
"One dance," I said to Carla.
"No, it's really too late."
"You promised."
"Honestly-"
"You did say you would."
"Well, all right. Just one."
And so we came together and moved across the floor. Her body was still oiled and my penis slid across her belly. Dropping my hands from her back to her buttocks, I squeezed her tight against me and felt her slippery flesh rub against mine. My fingers edged in between her buttocks and skidded with oily ease into her anus. Leaping up, she wound her legs behind me. Her hand found my penis and she forced it down, shoving it between the thick greased hills: it rode easily into her. Our mouths met, tongues sucking together, and she writhed and squirmed, urging the pressure of her body upon our connection, making it tight and maddeningly exciting. I ground my hips, pounding against her, faster, ever faster, and her teeth bit hard on my lips. The succulent greased sound of our thumping loins excluded the phonograph music. Holding her tight, we banged together wildly and brought each other to our pleasure.
Afterwards I refused to release her and in this position we went to the cloakroom to get our things. By the time we got there, our movements had again excited us and we started grinding away once more. The young man who attended in the cloakroom came out from behind the rack and approached us; he stood back of Carla, edged forward and drove his penis into her oily behind. The three of us danced round the room in a frenzy, and I and the attendant bucked away at Carla from both ends, pounded her breathless, and would not release her until, front and back, she dripped our liquid.
We dressed hurriedly, took the boat back to the shore, and I drove her back to our place of meeting where she climbed into her own car and rode off.
There was no need to make an appointment, of course. We knew where we might find each other in all the consecutive nights. And, indeed, until the war ended, I doubt that Carla ever missed one evening on that yacht. Needless to say, there were times I wouldn't see her for weeks on end. Not having her endurance, I'd have to take a month's vacation from the yacht now and again. And sometimes Carla would be occupied with others. But, generally speaking, we were as much lovers as any people are who live that kind of life.
And we continued in exactly that way until the war ended. All the members of the yacht knew that our club would be closed down, and we had a terrific party the last night. Twenty virgin girls and twenty virgin boys were introduced to, love in, as you may imagine, the best of all possible" ways. Chickens galore were slaughtered-and also eaten. The daisy-chain, hitherto unbroken, was joined by every man on the boat before its long and arduous career came to an end. And most delicious of all for Carla, the man who had stood masturbating outside the lesbian chamber allowed her not only to '.touch his penis but to thump him to an orgasm.
So our party ended. And Carla went back to wherever she had come from. I confess I was not sorry to see her go. Soon afterwards, I took a vow of the good life and married the young woman you met this evening. Our marriage has been one of extreme happiness-interrupted only when tales of my former life come to Louise's ears.
Bonnet, having finished his story, drained our third bottle of champagne.
"Good heavens, I'm tired," he said.
"There was quite a bit to say." I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes after two. "I really must be going."
"I'll drop you off."
"Are you going home?" I asked.
"No, of course not. How can I? And I am beastly tired."
I was silent with embarrassment. No, I decided, I wouldn't deceive this very nice man. I'll go straight home to bed.
"Listen," he said to me. "If you're thinking that perhaps after all you won't go and have some fun with my wife-"
"But how do you know about that?" I cried, incredulous.
"I've lived with the woman seven years. Now, look here, you'll be doing me a favor by going over to her. If you don't she'll find herself someone else. And I'd frankly much prefer she took you on."
"That's very kind of you-"
"Nonsense. One has got to come to terms with the world, hasn't one."
"I suppose so."-
"Well, come along. I'll drop you at the house."
We drove back to Cannes in silence. I was thinking how strange it was that Carla's attempt at revenge had backfired. The more I learned of her life after we separated, the more distant she seemed. That evening I was more concerned with Louise Bonnet than with the memory of Carla.
When we were not far from his home, Bonnet said: "If you will be a good fellow, won't you?" he asked.
"What would you like?"
"First of all, will you not forget to use these?" And from his pocket he took a package of rubber contraceptives. "There are a dozen of them."
"It's not likely I'll need all."
"One never knows," he laughed. "In any case, you must promise to use them. As much as I am fond of you, I should really dislike having to be the father of your child."
"I understand," I agreed. "I'll use them."
"Secondly," he continued. "I'm dead tired, so try not to stay on forever. And last of all: don't forget about lunch tomorrow."
"Indeed I won't."
He stopped a few yards before his house. "Here you are." We shook hands. "Goodnight," I said. "Goodnight. And have fun."
He drove away, and I went down the street to his home. The wall-doors were open and I walked through into the front-garden. 'Since she wasn't there, I followed the side-path around to the back of the house. The garden here was even more splendid by moonlight than it had been at sundown. I looked around but could not see her. All the lights were off in the house, and I thought that perhaps she had decided I wasn't coming and had gone to bed.
I wandered round the garden, picked a sprig of mimosa from a tree, and considered returning to my hotel.
"Are you looking for someone, Mr. Cunningham?" I heard her voice from behind a cluster of trees at what I had thought was the end of the garden. I walked toward the trees and found that the garden continued for some way. There, in the midst of the trees, flooded with moonlight, was Louise Bonnet. She was not, as I had imagined in my reverie earlier in the evening, naked. In fact, she wore the dress she had worn before, and it was even buttoned a bit higher. She looked ravishing in the moonlight.
"Yes," I said. "I was looking for you."
"For me?" She seemed incredulous. "For me? Why, what an extraordinary hour to come calling. It's a good thing my husband's out or-"
"What are you talking about?" I said, breathlessly. "I got your telephone message at my hotel and-"
"Telephone message. I left no telephone message for you."
There was something so utterly frozen in her voice that I felt momentarily convinced a trick had been played on me.
"Obviously, there's some mistake," I said. "Obviously."
"Then I'll say goodnight."
"Good morning would be more accurate."
"Goodnight then, and good morning."
I turned round to leave, but stopped myself, and turned back to her. Moving rapidly, I crossed the ground between, grabbed her into my arms and forced my lips against hers. She tried to push me away, and at first I resisted her efforts, but at last gave way.
"You're a maniac," she said, but by this time I knew that this was all part of a game: that Louise Bonnet was playing this thing out with the hope I would rape her.
"Come here," I shouted, and pulled her toward me, thrusting our mouths together again. My tongue groped between her lips, forcing her teeth apart; all the time she fought and scratched; I would not relinquish my hold.
When I released her I held the neck of her dress in my hands and I pulled in either direction so that all the tiny hundred buttons burst along the length of her dress and bounced to the ground. Beneath, she was naked. I tore the garment from her body and stepped back to look at her. She covered herself with her arms, trying to hide her nakedness: but little was hidden. The two wads of breast glared out at me, their teats stiff and purple in the moonlight. Taking her arm, I threw her to the ground.
"Don't move," I said, "or I'll kill you."
She lay quietly, in mock terror as I stripped myself and when I had flung myself upon her she once more pretended to be fighting me off. When I reached between her thighs, she squirmed so intensely I could not take hold of her; but my hand felt the dripping moisture of her passion. I forced her thighs back and she turned and jumped, and when I aimed my penis at her hole, she moved violently to prevent the entry. I drove forward and missed because she turned; I drove again and the tip of my member penetrated but was thrust away when she made one rapid jerk. I tried once more and this time sank deep into her flesh. She continued to wriggle and shake, but now her legs kept me bound to her.
Afterward, when we had broken apart, she pretended to be outraged.
"How dare you do a thing like that!" she cried. "I'm desperate," I said.
"You certainly are. You know I can call the police and have you arrested at once."
"I'd kill you if you did."
"I believe you would. You're a filthy brute." She drew herself to her feet. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked. "Into my house."
"No, you're not. I'm not done with you yet."
"You monster," she shrieked as I pulled her to the ground once again.
"Shut up. I don't want any noise out of you."
Needless to say, this whole game brought me close to laughter and yet in some perverse way I enjoyed it as much as she. I raped her twice more that evening, and then went back to my hotel. I slept until eleven, went down to the beach for a swim, and then walked over to the Bonnet house for lunch.
It was a pleasant lunch with several other people present. Bonnet was charming and disappeared as soon as the meal was over. I was rather amused with the difficulty Louise had in getting rid of the other guests. Finally, everyone had gone but the two of us. And she addressed her first words of the afternoon to me:
"I haven't said anything to my husband about last night. And I suggest you leave now and never come back to this house."
"Not just yet," I said.
"I hope you aren't expecting a repetition of last night's outrage."
"Exactly."
And, rising from my chair, I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the cluster of trees when. I violated the poor woman a considerable number of times.
I took the evening plane back to Paris, musing all the trip away with my memories of Cannes. Strangely enough, it was not until we landed in Orly that I reached into my pocket and found the full, unused package of contraceptives that Bonnet had given me the night before.
SIX
So, having returned from Cannes, I made my inventory: I had covered half of Carla's list-and in doing so, had committed adultery, had an evening (gratis) with a whore, posed for nude photographs, and heard a number of strange tales and encountered several very curious people. Half the list done, and yet three more visits remained to be made, as well as a trip to a village near the Spanish border.
The fourth name was Rex Baxter-obviously either an American or an Englishman. I rang him up the morning after I returned to Paris.
"Hello," he said in a crisp pleasant British voice.
"Mr. Baxter?"
"That's right."
"My name is Cunningham: Howard Cunningham I'm an old friend of Carla's-"
"Carlo's! Good heavens. Do you know I was just reading about her in the newspapers the other day."
"Awful, isn't it?"
"Hideous. Who did you say you were?"
"Howard Cunningham."
He hummed across the wire an instant. "I say, I have heard that name before."
"From Carla. I'm an old, old boy-friend of hers."
"Oh, of course. That's it. You threw her over, didn't you-or something like that."
"In a way. Look here, do you think I might come over and see you for an hour or so?"
"Certainly. Delighted. Can you come along right now?"
"Yes, I can."
"Good. Do you have the address."
"Yes, Carla left it for me."
"Then I'll be expecting you."
I walked to Baxter's place. His apartment was in a house which overlooked the Tuileries. Baxter himself answered my ring.
"Come right in," he said.
He was a short, slight, blonde man with rather feminine features. He could have been a well-preserved fifty or an ill-used twenty-five; actually-I think he was not mote than thirty-there was a certain awkwardness in his manner which had not yet been rubbed away.
Leading me into the enormous, sunny salon which looked down upon the Tuileries, he said:
"You know, I do renumber Carla having said something about your coming to visit me one day. But I thought surely it would never happen. Please sit down. What will you drink?"
"I really don't-"
"How about some nice tomato juice-in token of the morning-spiked with vodka: in token of the sunshine."
"All right," I agreed.
He left the room and returned after a moment with two glasses filled with dazzling red liquid.
"Blood and spirit. To Carla's inevitable end," he toasted. "Forgive my indelicacy." We drank.
"Now," he said, drawing his chair up beside mine, "tell me what I can do for you."
"Well, Carla left me a letter, listing your name among others. Her request was that you tell me of your relationship with her."
"Yes?"
"That's all. The rest is up to you. If you're willing-"
"Of course I'm wiling." He paused. "The only thing is that it is such an odd tale...."
"After the other stories I've heard of Carla's adventures, nothing could shock me."
"Perhaps not. But I'm not quite sure. In any case, I will tell you all there is to tell, but you must assure me that if you are shocked, you will stop me. I simply couldn't go on talking to a horrified audience."
"Yes. I agree. In the unlikelihood that I'm shocked, I'll stop you."
And so, for the fourth time, I settled back with a drink in my hand to Hear a tale of Carla's lust:
First of all, Mr. Cunningham, I must give you some idea of myself. I am an individual for whom love is indivisible. That is to say, for me sex is equally agreeable whether with woman, man, child, beast-or even objects or corpses. Everything on earth has a certain irresistible appeal for me. I will exclude nothing or no one from my bed. I've always been this way: nature, as you know, shapes the libertine in childhood. My first memories of sex, in fact, go back to my mother's dearth-or immediately afterward, when my brutal drunken father raped me not one night but many nights. When he remarried, his new wife took me as husband in the afternoons. At school, I was corrupted by (or, to tell the truth, I corrupted) teachers and students alike. I was, and am, insatiable. And what is more: I create insatiability in many people I meet.
After the war I came to Paris, a student of little means. Some of my money came from admirers, for even the French took a certain interest in me. Shall I describe all my degenerate ways to you? Let me give you one example, one that goes back to 1947.
I had fallen in with a rather wealthy group of people. The richest of them all was a woman named Marcelle. That was in the spring; and one day she told me that she was planning a costume ball at her home in the country. Would I come? she asked. Needless to say, I was delighted. Having little money of my own, I set to work putting together a costume for myself. I had chosen to go as Cinderella, and I worked a good many hours on the gown and on a wig of white wool. By the time the day of the ball arrived, I was ready to appear as a most ravishing Cinderella.
Being short, and having small features, I knew I would be able to deceive strangers into thinking I was a woman. But I wanted also to deceive those I did know. To do this required a feat of makeup, and I labored lengthily over this, putting layers of powder upon my face to conceal my beard, wearing much color on my eyes. The result, extraordinary as it may seem, was a perfect woman. My bodice was filled out with two false rubber breasts whose shape and texture was so uncanny that, after taking on my body's warmth, even I was deceived by them.
Masked, I arrived at Marcelle's home, and in fact no one did recognize me. Those, whom I knew looked at me curiously, then turned to one another and asked who
I could be. I danced with men and women alike, and I deceived everyone. How splendid it is to be at once known and unknown, to be both man and woman. Needless to say, I was so taken with myself that I paid very little attention to others.
That is to say: until just before midnight-at which time the most extraordinary man appeared in the ballroom. He was dressed as Robin Hood, was masked and bearded. The tights he wore were so revealing that everyone's eyes were glued to the man's genitals. I confess that I was overwhelmed, and taking advantage of the situation, I walked over to him, wondering how far I dared go without giving myself away.
"Good evening, Robin Hood," I said to him.
"Good evening, Cinderella." He bowed to me and I bowed back.
"I am sure I know who you are," I whispered, not having any idea, but in order to keep the conversation going.
"Who am I?"
"You are-you're Jules de Marville."
He laughed; it was a soft, musical laugh. "No, I'm not de Marville. And all the Jules are in your eyes."
"Robin Hood can really flatter," I said rather nervously.
"I never flatter. It's quite true. But you haven't guessed who I am."
"Well, if you're not de Marville, I can't imagine who you are."
"Then, shall we make a deal?"
"Perhaps...."
"I'll trade my name for yours."
"Oh, no," I said. "That's no trade. I'm Cinderella and no one else."
"In that case, Cinderella, will you dance with one who is neither Marville nor Robin Hood?"
We walked to the center of the floor and he put his arms around me, drawing me close to him. Almost the moment we were together I was amazed to sense the pressure of his rock-hard tool against me. What an irresistible woman I had turned out to be! My difficulty was, however, that, while dancing, my own penis had begun to stiffen, and I feared that, should he feel it, I might end the evening with nothing more romantic than a black eye.
"Let's go out into the garden," I said, interrupting the dance.
"I should love to."
We walked out with his arm round me. Since there were many couples in the area immediately around the house, we strolled for five or six minutes before sitting down on a rough wooden bench in a concealed part of the garden.
"What a wonderful night it is," he said, his arm dropping from my shoulder to my waist.
"Yes, it is," I agreed, rather breathlessly. I knew we would not spend the rest of the evening discussing the weather, and I wondered what I might do when his embraces would begin threatening to give my secret away. What would I do if he tugged at my breasts and found them removable? What would I do if he longed to touch a woman's soft places and found instead some-thing as hard as the instrument that even now bulged from his loins?
Without thinking, madly attracted to the very bulge I've just mentioned, I reached out and put my hand over his tights. The length and thickness of his penis dazzled me, and I realized what I had done and pulled my hand away.
"No," he said. "Don't stop."
"I mustn't," I said.
"Why mustn't you, for heaven's sake?" I shook my head. "I can't explain. I simply mustn't. Believe me."
His arms went round me in a powerful grasp, and he pulled my face to his, bringing our mouths together. I tried to keep my mouth closed to his insistent tongue, but its sweetness coaxed my lip's, and at last I relented, relaxed the drawbridge of my teeth, and allowed him into the castle of my mouth. Our tongues met and lapped at each other until I was blind with passion. Suddenly I felt his hand moving along my neck, descending along my chest. In a moment, it would grope into my bodice.
I'm lost, I thought. Lost.
Terrified, I wanted to break away, but passion refused to allow me, and I gave myself recklessly to the kiss, pushing inevitability out of my mind.
With calm certainty, his hand dug down my dress and took the firm warm rubber breast in his hand. He didn't seem to notice anything unusual, and with relief, I threw caution to the winds and let my hand stray once again to the tremendous lump in his loins.
After a moment, his hand released my breast and soon reappeared at my ankle. It strayed upward, sliding over calf and knee, and then gently, with infinite tenderness, stroked my thigh. I snapped my legs together with violent determination.
"What is it?" he asked.
"You mustn't touch me there."
"Why not? I want to."
"No, please."
"Surely there must be some explanation. I know you desire me."
"Yes, I do,, but-"
"But what? Tell me."
And then I had an incredibly brilliant idea.
'You can't," I said. "Because-"
"Because why?"
"It embarrasses me to say it."
"Nonsense. You mustn't feel embarrassed with me. Please tell me."
Lovingly, coaxingly, he planted little moist kisses along my neck. "Tell me," he said.
"Well, the truth is-I'm having my period."
He burst into laughter. "Do you think a little blood would frighten me?"
"It's not only you-but I myself can't bear to be touched there at these times."
"Let me, and I'll show you the pleasures of it."
"No, no." And then, gathering my courage, I made the recommendation I had been longing to make from the moment I saw him. "But there are other ways."
"Other ways?"
"Yes, other passageways through which your passion may travel." He smiled. "I understand."
We were silent as I stood up and knelt before the bench, leaning my elbows on the rough wood. He knelt behind me and I felt him lift my gown. Gently, he lowered the panties I wore and pressed his warm lips upon my buttocks. Then he paused and I trembled at the sound of his own clothing being lowered.
His hands went again to my flesh and drew my buttocks wide. I felt the enormous head of his penis touch my delicate flesh. He thrust, once and again, ripping me, and inserting his length into me. Bound together, we remained motionless. Then his arms went round me to fondle my breasts; but. only one hand stayed at my breasts, the other descended, descended, descended.
So taken was I with my role of woman that I completely forgot what my lover's hand would touch as it reached for moisture. I allowed him to descend, and then suddenly awoke to the realization that his fingers were in contact with my enflamed member. Utterly terrified, I wrenched my hips forward and tore his penis out of me. I jumped to my feet, pulling my panties up, expecting the blows to start falling. But when I looked at my Robin Hood, he was still on his knees, his tremendous tool outstretched before him; but instead of expressing fury, he was shaking with laughter.
"You're not angry?" I asked.
"Angry?" He could hardly speak for laughing.
"Yes."
He controlled himself slightly. "Why should I be angry of all things?"
"Because I deceived you."
"But you haven't deceived me."
"I haven't-" I was dumbfounded. "You mean you knew all along that I wasn't a woman?"
"Of course I knew. Dear boy, as it has turned out, it's I who've deceived you."
"You? But how?"
And, bursting into laughter once more, he rose to his feet, and from round his plump fleshy hips unstrapped the belt to which was tied the pink rubber penis, perpetually erect. Once it was gone, what remained was a woman's triangle of hair within her loins.
"You're a woman," I said.
"Of course I am. My name is Carla."
Now it was my turn to laugh, and I did so lengthily.
"I came to this party," she said, "with the express aim of doing something I've always longed to do: to fuck a man. I hope you'll be good enough to allow me to complete a job that was so well begun."
"With the greatest pleasure."
She readjusted her dildo and we sank back into position. Once more the rubber penis was driven into my bowels, but this time, when Robin Hood's hand reached round, I waited with delight for Carla's fingers to circle my rod. Thus, pumping and pulling, Carla continued driving at me until my fluid watered the ground beneath us.
Afterwards J she said: "I realize that your tool is less mighty than mine, but I'm sure it can give me as much pleasure as mine has given you. If you don't mind, of course."
And, to show her how little I minded, I began at once to pull her costume from her; and she joined the disrobing by pulling my gown from me. We were not still until Cinderella and Robin Hood lay flung upon the ground, and Carla and I stood facing each other. Her full, mature body glowed at me. My hands reached forward, circling her swollen globes. We drew closer, flesh meeting flesh, my penis firm against her belly. Our lips glued together, tongues circling. My fingers ran the length of her body, massaging each inch of her: the silky back, the resilient buttocks, the soft but compact thighs.
Without a word we dropped to the dew-laden grass, rolling over and over in the moisture, thighs hard against thighs. The cool dampness of the ground muddied and wet our flesh; soon Carla was everywhere as slimy as she was between her legs. My hands rummaged in all her slime, searched in her box of hair and jelly. I inserted my fingertip, drew it out, ran it again and again across her clitoris. Finally, her legs drew back: the lips gaped up at me. I bent over her, putting my penis at the threshold of her sheath. She trembled and I pushed, pushed, broke into her, joined our throbbing meat together, and thumped heavily, crazily. Her legs were in the air, spinning with her passion. Then, at the moment of our climax, her buttocks flailed up and down wildly so that nothing remained but the pouring of our juices.
We remained pasted together for some time. "I congratulate you," she said at last. "Whatever for?"
"For being as accomplished a husband as you are stimulating a wife."
"I can say no less for you. In fact, I really must say more-since you are easily twice as much of a husband as I am."
"Twice as much and half as much, since part of the time I am no husband at all."
"Nor am I."
"Yes," she laughed. "We are a strange couple. I think we may look forward to many interesting evenings together. Isn't that so, my husband-wife?"
"Indeed, my wife-husband."
When we returned to the ball, we danced a good deal and talked somewhat, telling each other of our past adventures. I, who until that evening had considered myself the most degenerate of creatures, was flabbergasted to learn of Carla's exploits. She had left nothing undone.
"How remarkable you are," I told her.
"Why do you think so? Your life has been almost as full as mine; and besides you are considerably younger than I."
"No, that's not what I mean. I say you're remarkable because debauchery has left no trace upon you. Your body is full and young, unblemished. Your face-well, I needn't describe your beauty. Certainly, dozens of others have made you aware of your charms."
"You flatter me."
"I don't. Why should I? But tell me, Carla, how do you manage to keep yourself so well, to show no trace of reckless living?"
She sighed. "Well, Rex, as I've told you: only a very restricted part of my life is devoted to my loves. When I return home each night, I go to bed and sleep until noon. My daughter, Angela, is at her studies then, and though we almost never see each other in the morning-I am very careful never to be absent from home."
"She has no idea of your-your second life?
"None whatsoever."
"How incredible that seems!"
"Not at all. It has often cost a great deal to insure my secret. I've had to change servants regularly, and often to pay heavily for their silence. Not that they have ever suspected anything. But it has unavoidably happened, of course, that a maid or a butler or Angela's governess has become aware of my absence during the night. It is easy to buy their silence. They think I am a hysterically doting mother-"
"Which, in fact, you seem to be."
"Yes, that's true. You see, my conduct isn't inconsistent. I tell the servant I have been to visit a friend, but that my daughter mustn't know. She must be certain that no one is more important to me than herself. And this is true."
"Yes, but how does this devotion keep you beautiful?"
"It isn't devotion. It's simply that from the moment I rise at noon until I leave my home toward midnight, my life is peaceful, regular, ordered. I have eighteen hours of rest for every six hours of madness."
"I see."
"Most libertines, as you know, cannot keep their secrets very long. They find it difficult to restrict their loves to a certain time. Their days are interrupted a dozen times and at any hour. This is what wears then-out-not their fictions, but that there is no regulation to their lives."
"I'll remember that," I said.
"If you do," she told me, "and if you act accordingly, I think you'll find that your endurance is greater and that you'll be potent over a longer period of time than most men."
I realized then that Carla was someone who not only practiced sex, but also theorized about it. She had not, I could see, gone about her experience blindly as most do. When I asked her about this, she replied:
"Would you expect me to ignore such a vital part of my life?"
"I don't mean ignore...."
"Most of the people at this party, no matter how debauched they are, and even though they think of nothing but sex, do actually ignore it."
"How do you mean?"
"They think of it only in terms of physical accomplishment. They dream up the wildest variations. Once I knew a man who taught me to make love standing on my head!"
"Really? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Few people have. And yet there are cults all over the world who will do it no other way."
"You must teach it to me."
"I will, one day. But to get back, the man who taught me this, saw in it only another exciting and violent way of fucking. For me, it was more than that: it was another achievement, a defiance of nature. A conquest."
"Of what?"
"Of myself, if nothing else. Of my own limitations." I see.
"But for God's sake, Rex, please don't think I feel like a philosopher when I'm in the middle of love-making."
"You don't act like one."
"Thank you."
"And you certainly don't look like one."
"Now I'm really complimented."
The party ended, as those parties invariably do, in one tremendous orgy. Costumes were shredded and thrown into corners of the room. Mountains of living throbbing flesh rose from floor to ceiling as people threw themselves upon each other. Carla, back to the role of Robin Hood, drove her rubber phallus into every opening that turned her way. I was always behind her, my relentless penis riding through the wet lips into her twitching sheath, my hands crushing at the tense softness of her breasts.
Somehow, in the course of the orgy, we were separated, for a man had come at her, torn her dildo away and dragged her off to another corner of the room. I heard her agonized shrieks over the noises of the crowd, heard the sound of her flesh being beaten. When I at last managed to crawl over to her it was in time to see the man holding her hips in the air so that her body rested on her shoulders. He leaned forward between her thighs and plunged himself into her. Then he took hold of her arms, pulled her into the air, and flung her back: the floor shook as she fell. Yet her legs held tight round the man's back so that nothing could break their contact.
At that point I was interrupted in my watching, for two women and a man came rushing at me, dragging me to the ground.
It was not until much later that I saw Carla again. She came toward me, struggling with the man who had carried her away from me.
"Let me alone," she kept shouting.
"No." He pulled her.
"Find yourself someone else. I've got to leave now."
"You can't leave. The party will go on for days."
"I'll come back tomorrow then and we'll take up where we left off."
"I'll make you stay."
"You won't. Now don't be ridiculous. Let me alone. You can find yourself someone else."
She had managed at last to move over to my party. Her lover looked at me.
"I'll let you alone," he said to Carla. "If I can have him."
"Delighted," I said.
"You'll have to wait a minute," said Carla. "I must be going now, Rex."
"Can you come to my place tomorrow night."
"Yes."
I told her my address while she rummaged among some costumes. Since her own clothes were not to be found, she settled for a tiger skin which covered only one breast, leaving the other to stare at me enticingly.
But then she was gone and Carla's former lover threw me to the ground, lifting me to the position he preferred. He spread my buttocks, drove his member into my bottom, and when we were secured together, he proceeded to fling me up and down as he had Carla. I felt his penis grow, the blood in it throbbing against my flesh, and his cream burst into me. Since this satiated neither of us, we continued in exactly the same way well on into the morning. But then, my bowels being so laden with liquid, I could not prevent the spasm which flung his organ out of me, followed by several enormous creamy turds which splashed upon him and covered his genitals With a layer of brown. "Lick me clean," he roared.
And, never daunted, always obliging, I obeyed him, thus returning to my body what it had just ejected. After this, we tired of each other and I decided to follow Carla's advice. I went home to sleep and rest, to prepare for my next encounter with the beautiful woman.
She arrived at my room at midnight, bringing with her a man I had seen before, but could not place.
Carla looked round my room and said: "This is too small a place for good sex. Have you a bath?"
"No, of course not."
She turned to the man. "Buy Rex an apartment tomorrow. I'll pay you back in the evening." He nodded.
"We need room for love. And besides, we must have a bath. I'll teach you a marvelous way to make love. But first let me introduce you to my friend and business associate, Paul Lenoir."
We shook hands, and I said: "You know, I've seen you before, but I can't remember where."
"It's possible," he replied. "My job keeps me on the run."
"Paul," Carla explained, "is in the semen business."
"Really?" I couldn't help smiling.
"I too was amused at first," she said. "But when you've found how his business will affect you, you will take it more seriously."
"It just seems a trifle odd," I apologized. "In brief, what he does is buy and sell semen."
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "That's how I happened to see him."
"Really?" Lenoir asked me. "I don't remember having done business with you."
"No, you haven't. But several months ago, I was walking down the street with a friend, and you passed on the opposite side. My friend pointed you out to me, and said: 'Do you see that fellow? He's a most extraordinary creature. He was sent to me a few weeks ago by a friend. He offered me 2,000 francs for a bottle of joy-juice. Not a big bottle at that: two or three days' work at most. I said I'd be delighted to oblige but that it was quite a bit to ask a girl if she wouldn't mind giving back what I'd just bestowed upon her. He gave me a box of rubbers and said: use these, then empty them into the bottle, or if you'd prefer you can simply give me the used rubbers. Needless to say, I agreed and I've been filling bottles galore ever since.' My friend didn't tell me what you do with the stuff."
"I resell it," said Lenoir.
"And I'm one of his most regular clients," Carla informed me.
"And what do you do with it?" I asked her.
"That, you will learn tomorrow."
"As a matter-of-fact," said Lenoir, "Carla is my most demanding client. I've had to give up a number of others to keep her orders filled."
"That isn't true, Paul. Once I had the amount I needed, it was only a question of a small steady supply."
"I certainly am anxious to know," I. said, "to what uses you put the stuff."
"You'll have to wait. Now, before we get down to tonight's business, I want you to remember to have all your things packed by midnight tomorrow. I'll come found with a taxi and take you to your new quarters." She turned to Lenoir. "You'll be sure to find something really excellent for him?"
"Have I ever failed you, Carla?"
"No, you haven't-not in any way."
And so, the three of us undressed and had a party thr.t lasted until dawn.
Needless to say, I was thrilled at the idea of leaving my little room for a spacious apartment. All my packing was done hours before Carla was due to arrive. So I spent the evening pacing back and forth across the floor waiting for the great moment.
At last she came, Lenoir and the cab-driver behind her.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"Ready? I've been packed since the afternoon."
"Good. Shall we go along then?"
We each took a valise, left the room and went down the stairs into the street. We climbed into the taxi and were on our way in a moment.
"I'm thrilled about all this," I said, hardly able to believe it was actually happening.
"Wait until you've seen the place!" said Carla.
"Have you seen it?" I asked.
"We've just come from there. And it's all yours."
"God, Carla," I said, "I can't think of any way to hank you!"
"Don't be silly. It's a pleasure for me. And besides, you simply had to have a place with a bath."
When the cab came to a stop, I was astonished to see we were just across the street from the Tuileries.
"Surely it isn't here?" I said.
"Of course it is. And what's more, it has a view upon the gardens."
We all went upstairs and Carla gave me the key.
"I think you ought to carry me across the threshold," she said.
I opened the door, picked her up in my arms and carried her into the flat.
"Furnished," I cried. I was incredulous to see that nothing was wanting in the apartment.
"Of course! Furnished. I thought it would be such a bore to have to waste time if there weren't any furniture."
We went round the apartment, Lenoir and the cab-driver still with us. I had noticed that Carla seemed interested in the driver. He was a good-looking man-but more than that, he was a potential sexual partner, and that was enough to interest Carla. As we made our way round the flat, I saw her edge close to him and whenever possible wiggle her buttocks against him. The poor man seemed half-mad with desire. When we reached the bathroom, Carla suddenly turned upon the man and said:
"We're going to have a little party here tonight." Her leg moved against his. "A very intimate party, you understand. Perhaps you'd like to stay?"
"I'd love to," he said in a hoarse whisper.
And so Carla told him everyone's name, and he in turn said he was called Louis.
"Well, then, gentlemen," Carla began, turning the knob of the bathroom door, "allow me to present the treat of the evening."
And she threw open the door. It was the most spectacular bathroom I had ever seen: larger than an ordinary sitting-room. And it was furnished not only with a tub but with a large bed and a chaise-longue.
"Come closer," she said. "Come closer. And see what's in the tub."
Louis and I approached. The tub was half-filled with a thick gleaming milky fluid. It took me several seconds' to realize what it was.
"So that's why you were so anxious for a bath," I said.
"Exactly."
"But it must be terribly cold."
"Not at all," she replied, and turned to Lenoir. "Paul, will you warm the bath?"
"Certainly." And he left the room.
While he was gone, Carla reached her hand into the tub, stroked the thick fluid, then took her dripping fingers out, patting them across my face and that of Louis, the cab-driver.
"What is it?" he asked, taken aback.
"What does it look like?"
"I-I'm not sure."
Drawing herself close to him, she said: "It's what you'll soon be pouring into me."
Louis' arms went around Carla, and their mouths sucked together in a wide passionate kiss. I watch;. I his hands fondle her back from thigh to shoulder.
When Lenoir returned he was carrying with him a curious device: two long metal rods fastened together and from whose top appeared a long wire which ultimately tapered into a plug. This plug he shoved into a socket not far from the tub, and then he plunged the twin rods into the bath of semen.
"As the rods heat up," Carla explained, "the liquid is warmed. God bless the machine age. Let's undress."
So the four of us began to disrobe one another. When we were naked, Carla once again reached into the tub.
"It's almost ready," she said. "Who will smear my body with the precious stuff?"
She had three volunteers, so it was decided that since Louis was the newcomer, he would coat Carla. But since actually it was my great evening, Carla, once coated, would cover me with the liquid.
Louis was enraptured. He approached Carla, his hands and tool outstretched. Again, their bodies met, and as they kissed he wriggled until his penis moved in between her thighs. They shimmied and rubbed and stroked and sighed. At last, Carla broke away:
"No no, you terrible man. I must first of all be covered with the most precious-and expensive-juice in the world."
Moving to the tub, Louis reached his hands into the fluid, then drew them out and began massaging Carla. He put the stuff upon her shoulders, and rubbed downwards across her chest. He coated her breasts thickly so that they were like milky blobs. Taking more fluid, he stroked her belly and hips, and with two great handfuls smeared the hair of her loins into a gluey mess. Carla was now dripping with semen. Louis' ecstatic wet hand reached between her thighs, and Carla leaned against the wall, raising herself so that we could all see the area upon which he worked. Her woman was thick with sperm, and Louis' fingers moved into her hole. Then he painted her thighs, her knees, ankles, even between her toes.
She turned round saying: "Now the second part."
Louis willingly obeyed. Soon her back dripped with the juice of a thousand orgasms. Delicately, Louis spread her buttocks and massaged the cream there and into her anus. Soon she was one mass of already-drying semen.
"Now, Rex...."
"Yes."
"It's your turn to feel the delicious moisture on every part of your body."
Her hands swooped into the bath, tupping out masses of the liquid. She was less economical and in a much greater hurry than Louis had been. The warm sticky mess came pasting upon my body in thick patches; it ran down my neck, chest and legs. With two handfuls she fondled my genitals and the sensation was so pleasant I thought I might any moment add to Carla's supply. But, in fact, she was done with me almost before she began.
"That was much too quick," I said.
"But I wanted to finish before it dried."
Her face came close to me, and with passion burning in her eyes she began licking from my body what she had just applied to it. She drank from my chest and armpits, from my navel, from my thickly-coated loins, from my legs, from my back, from between my buttocks. Her tongue flickered out hungrily, her lips sucked along each inch of my fevered body.
When I was licked clean, Carla removed the electric rods from the tub and said:
"Come, Rex. Come into the bath."
She stepped in and I followed her, sinking my body into the thick jelly of joy.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Carla shrieked, splashing both herself and me with the fluid.
Paul Lenoir and Louis knelt beside us and rubbed us with our bath-water. I stretched my hands forward, through the thick mess, and sought Carla's slimy breasts. I squeezed them, tugging her large nipples. She in turn took hold of my penis, pulling at it in the velvet softness of the semen. Now and then a rubber contraceptive floated to the surface, and Carla grabbed at it and slid it across her face.
"Think of all the love we're lying in," she cried with mad delight in her face.
When one of the rubbers surfaced, she took hold of it, and told Louis to stand up. When he obeyed, she opened the rubber and drew it on to his member, rubbing her sperm-laden hands across his scrotum. Then Louis pushed his organ toward Carla's face; her mouth opened and the dripping rubber-covered penis burst into her mouth. She sucked at it hungrily.
While she did this, I moved forward, lying down between Carla's legs. I threw her knees back and felt her jellied twat under the liquid. I moved on top of her, edged my rod to her burning hole and lunged forward, carrying with me a dozen orgasms. Just as we joined together, Lenoir leaped into the tub, jumped on top of me and plunged his heated mass into my twitching anus. To complete the party, Louis too came into the bath, never removing his instrument from Carla's devoted mouth. The four of us jumped and shook and twitched. Lenoir pounded in and out of me, and I pounded in and out of Carla. At last we all came to our climax, and our fresh juices mixed with the juices in the tub.
Carla stretched languidly.
"Isn't life wonderful?" she said.
Yes, life was wonderful, but the tub had begun to grow chilly, so we all jumped out and thrust the electric rods back in to heat the stuff.
We bundled up close together in a kind of weird dance, shivering across each other's jellied body. Carla was delighted to lick us all clean, and she tore the rubber off Louis' penis, pushed it into her mouth and sucked it until it emerged spotless. This so enflamed Louis that he dropped himself to the floor between Carla's legs and drank passionately at her cunt. After a moment she moved away, arranging herself above Louis' member. Gracefully, she descended upon it, fixing its length in herself. As they sat thus, Lenoir and I began scooping up semen and showering it upon the lovers. (In fact Lenoir threw such an excessive amount that I could not help suspecting he had one eye on his business.)
As Carla leaned forward over Louis, her breasts swayed out and I filled the valley between with joy-juice. Then I filled my own behind with the jelly and planted my bottom square into Louis' face, bending forward so that my own mouth covered Carla's moist teat. To my delight, I felt Louis' tongue licking at the substance I'd placed at his disposal. Lenoir too joined us by plunging his anointed instrument into Carla's mouth. We all bounced savagely, and to insure my orgasm, I removed my behind from Louis' mouth and substituted my penis. Thus, the four of us once again poured away our juices.
Afterwards, the bath had warmed, and we climbed back into the restful jelly, playing with gentle exhaustion.
"Wouldn't it be marvelous," said Carla, "if we could identify every drop of this semen?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, suppose I pointed to that drop on your nose and said: oh, that's from the time that Joseph fucked Lucy in her father's garage. It would be so nice to know each instance of every drop."
"Your curiosity is insatiable," said Lenoir. "How much can you expect me to ask of my laborers?"
Carla laughed. "Oh, I don't expect you to ask! I just think it would be marvelous to know. Here hundreds of people have come thousands of times and we sit in it all and don't know under what circumstances it was made."
"Well," Louis told her, "you can be sure that from now on I'll save every trickle for you and tell you exactly how it happened."
"I'd like that," Carla said, rubbing his back with the unidentified fluid.
"I know where you can collect a lot of it-and get it for nothing," Louis said to Carla.
Lenoir was obviously displeased. "I'm sure that I've left no stone unturned in my quest for the vital liquid."
"I'll bet this is a place you never went to," Louis challenged. "Because few people even know about it."
"Where is it?" Carla asked.
"It's an old soldiers organization. They have a monthly meeting, and after the meeting there's a party in the back. A couple of men and women come out and fuck in the middle of the room and the old guys sit around watching and whacking off."
"Are there a lot of them?" Carla asked.
"About a hundred. And they go at it three or four times during the performance."
"How can we collect it though?" said Carla.
"Leave that to me. If you're willing to give a performance, I'll take care of the rest."
"I'd be delighted," she said.
"There's going to be a meeting a week from today. The show starts about one o'clock, so I'll pick you up here, say, about half-past-twelve."
"That's fine."
Having settled the business, we returned to pleasure, and continued with it until it was time for Carla to leave. When they'd gone I settled down to the problem of unpacking.
Carla visited me every night during the week that followed and she invariably brought two or three people with her. She was, I must confess, the least discriminating of individuals. As far as love was concerned, Carla was truly blind. She would bring fat prostitutes and old vagabonds, anyone in fact she chanced upon. And curiously enough, each person flowered under her touch.
Thrust into a steaming bath of semen, a pimply boy could become the most violent of lovers.
Thus, the week of waking passed. And, as he had promised, Louis appeared at my door at half-past-midnight.
"We've got to hurry," he said.
"We're ready," Carla told him, and she and I followed him out and into his cab. Carla sat with him in the front seat and sucked him all the way to the meeting-place.
We parked in an alley back of a large building, climbed a very dark staircase, entered a small nondescript room which ultimately led into a tremendous hall where scores of chairs were arranged in a large circle round a small space.
"They'll be here in a minute," said Louis. It was only then I noticed he had a large box in his hand. "What's that?" I asked him.
"It's to collect the joy-juice Wait, I think I hear them."
A large door in the back of the room burst open and the veterans entered in a rush. They were all sizes, shapes and ages, and I could hear their heavy anxious breathing. In a group, they walked to a corner of the room and there proceeded to remove their clothing, each putting his things into a little locker-like box which had apparently been constructed for these occasions.
When they were nude, they came forward and took their seats. Louis raised his arms, bringing the men to silence.
"Tonight, gentlemen," Louis began, "I've brought for your pleasure a woman who is not only the most beautiful flesh many of us have had the pleasure to gaze upon, but is also the most spectacular."
The audience leaned forward.
"I take pride," continued Louis, "in presenting Carla, the insatiable."
The men applauded appreciatively, and then Louis said it was time to undress. This was done at length and with infinite slowness. When the three of us were naked, Louis once more began to speak.
"Now, tonight, gentlemen, you are in for a very special treat. Carla is a passionate collector of that juice which is such a delight for men to produce. In this box which I've brought along with me are hundreds of rubbers. Carla herself will place them on your throbbing organs. I have enough caps to go around for ;ach of you six times. Now, this is the special treat of the evening: to any or all of you men capable of two orgasms, Carla will let you deposit a third, a fourth, and even a fifth and sixth-into the beautiful hot meat which I shall now reveal to you."
Louis lifted Carla up in the air, her back to his chest. I, in turn, stepped forward, stooping, spreading Carla's thighs wide to the audience. We circled the room, and the men sighed with appreciation.
"Now, gentlemen," said Louis. "If you will permit, she will cover your thundering erections with the caps."
Louis tore the box open and we passed round the room while Carla stopped before each of the hundred men, moistened their penises with her mouth, and rolled the rubbers over them. No man could resist fingering the flesh that had so recently been displayed to him.
When all the rods in the room, save mine and Louis', had been covered, we three performers returned to the center of the floor and began the rites of love. Carla was superb that evening. Every rhch of her body trembled with excitement. Passion radiated from her, and I myself became so ctazed with desire that I felt I could easily add a half-dozen to her collection. Louis and I labored over her, and the three of us rolled on the floor, came close to the men in the first row whose hands reached out. My mouth sealed upon one of Carla's teats; Louis' mouth sealed upon the other. My hand rode down her body, exploring it anew, finding her flesh for the first time under two hundred watching eyes. My fingers dug downward, clawing into her wet pink woman; and another hundred hands reached with mine.
The three of us turned on our side; I was in front of Carla and Louis was in back. Simultaneously, we began the penetration of her body. Her left leg was raised high in the air so that all those watching could observe the head of my aching penis slide into the widening sheath; and just back of this, another penis was entering into her. We lunged, driving ourselves in to the hilt. The room was alive with passionate sighs. Again and again I plunged myself in and out of her, and Louis followed suit. Her leg remained fixed in space so that our contact was freely revealed. All the men stood up and moved forward, closing the circle round us so that the hot breath of their excitement poured down. In this heated fevered mass, we flung ourselves at Carla, and in a moment there was nothing but the sighs of more than a hundred orgasms.
The men returned to their seats and Carla stood up and went round the room collecting the used rubbers, knotting them and depositing them in a corner. In this way, each man had the supreme delight of being licked clean by Carla's ever-hungry tongue. Afterwards, she went round placing fresh rubbers on all of them.
A second performance ensued with variations on the first, and ultimately another hundred caps were filled.
"And now, gentlemen," Louis said. "The rest of the evening is yours. Each of you may use Carla as you see fit."
It was now time for Louis and myself to retire to the audience's position, and what ensued was a free-for-all such as I have never, before or since, seen. The more assailed Carla was, the mote responsive she became. The more orgasms she was driven to, the more she desired. Penises covered and filled every part of her flesh. She was bitten and flailed, scratched and torn, and she merely screamed for more.
But Louis and I, I must confess, were not long watching. There were a couple of dozen men who thought it an excellent idea to keep their irons, as it were, in our fires-until Carla's furnace was ready to receive them. Needless to say, I found this highly enjoyable and there were quite a number of men who were anxious to put their fires at the disposal of my iron.
In all, it was an extravagant evening. Carla left at dawn, and Louis and I soon followed with several hundred rubber-wrapped orgasms. He drove me home in his taxi and helped bring the semen up to the flat where, as exhausted as we were, we managed to coax each other into increasing Carla's supply ever-so-slightly.
But, strangely enough, Carla never returned to my flat. Nor did Louis. And the only time I ever saw her again was a month later when it occurred to me she might return to the veterans' meeting. Truly, she was there with Louis and several other men; the soldiers had not yet come in.
"Carla," I called.
"Oh, Rex, my darling."
"What's happened?"
"Nothing's happened!"
She seemed so casual I couldn't think what to say to her.
"Why should you think any thing's happened?" she asked.
"It's a month since I've seen you."
"I know."
"Well, why haven't you come to the flat?"
"Frankly, Rex, ever since that first night here at this place, I've realized that one, two, three, or even ten men just aren't enough for me. I need a mob-like this."
"But this is only once a month."
"This is. But Louis knows of parties like this all over Paris-night after night." I see.
I stayed around for the party that night and promised Carla I would come to the others whose addresses she gave me. But I never did go. The truth is, I'd grown fond of her and wanted her for myself-at least now and then. Since this was impossible, I thought it wiser to break the attachment immediately.
The next day I had a woman sent in to clean my bathtub. It had become a dry cruddy mess during its unused month and the woman grumbled and complained she had never seen a bath in such a frightful state. She didn't seem to know what the rubbers were
"What are all these things?" she asked. "Dried-up balloons?"
"Are you married?"
"Yes. And with ten kids."
"Ah, that explains it."
She shrugged and finished cleaning. When she left I gave her the twin electric rods as a present, telling her they heated water in no time....
"And so, Mr. Cunningham, Carla's last trace disappeared from my apartment-and my life."
"She came a long way from the time I knew her," I told Baxter.
"But you weren't shocked by my story."
"Good heavens, no."
"Then I can only say that what you've heard from others about Carla must have prepared you well-enough for this."
"Yes, indeed. Well, Mr. Baxter, I won't trouble you anymore."
"It's been no trouble at all. In fact I've enjoyed every minute of it." We stood up and he showed me out of the salon.
"Just one thing more," I said.
"Anything."
"Might I see your bath?"
Baxter burst into laughter. "But of course," he said. And led me into the room.
SEVEN
There remained but two visits to make, and I must confess I felt uninclined to make them. As Carla's life or the stories of it delved more and more deeply into the patterns of degeneracy, I felt less and less involved with her, with the memory of her. I had found Baxter's tale faintly unpleasant; but I had not been moved. Carla's revenge had overstepped itself.
Still, I was determined to do the "honorable ".thing. I would go on with the visits.
Number five was a woman named Emma Deligny. Her address and telephone number indicated that she lived in the Montmartre area. I waited two days before I telephoned her, and it took a considerable amount of self-will to force myself to dial her number.
"Hello," a woman's voice screamed at me.
"Hello, may I speak with Emma Deligny?"
"Emma, Emma, Emma," she muttered.
"Yes, Emma Deligny."
"I am Emma." She sounded uncertain of this.
"You are Emma Deligny."
"No."
What an exasperating person. "Are you Emma Deligny?"
"Sometimes." She sighed deeply, and for an instant I thought she was going to burst into tears.
"My name is Howard Cunningham," I said, hoping this might mean something to her.
"I'm not well," she said softly.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm calling you to ask if you might remember a woman named Carla."
"Emma."
"No, not Emma-Carla. You are Emma."
"Yes."
"Do you think I might come by this afternoon to speak to you for a few moments?"
There was only silence at the other end of the line so I repeated my question.
"What do you want to say?" she asked.
"I would like to talk to you about Carla."
There was more silence and when I was once again about to speak, I heard a scream come at me.
"What's the matter?" I shouted.
"Where is she? Where is she?"
"Where is who?"
"Where is Carla? When is she coming home? Emma is waiting."
"I'll be right over," I said to her. "With Carla?"
I hung up without answering, went out, climbed into my car and drove to Montmartre. The house was on a small curious street, like a farm-road right in the middle of a city-block. I went through the gate and up to the house; it was a private home and it was more than half in ruins.
Having knocked at the door, I waited, ill at ease. It was not long before I once again heard the voice that had come to me over the telephone.
"Carla?" it asked, and ridiculously, I replied:
"Yes."
The door opened a crack and a face peered out at me. It was so white and the room behind it so dark that I had a momentary impression of a disembodied head. The face was old, old; the oldest face I could remember having seen. It was ghastly white, hung in great fleshy folds: the eyes and mouth slanted downward. The hair that bordered the face was a painful, alarmingly bright violet. It was tinted to match her huge crazed eyes.
"Carla?" she asked looking at me.
I could think of nothing to say. A finger appeared below the face; she crooked it at me, inviting me to enter. I obeyed and she shut the door behind me. I could see absolutely nothing in the darkness. I waited, then heard flat unpleasant footsteps flop across the room. A door opened and a flood of white electric light burst out at me. And in the light I saw the woman who had let me in.
She was naked but for a wide slave-band round her flabby upper arm. What I noticed first was the hair at her loins which had been dyed the same color as her head. I had a momentary impression of this madwoman sitting on a bidet full of purple ink, dipping her fleshy parts into the color. Her body was revolting. Long thin breasts hung to her belly and ended in enormous nipples that had been painted red; her navel was the same color. Fold after fold of pleated flesh hung from her-and yet she wasn't fat. Once, no doubt, she had been, but the substance was gone and there remained now only this hideous wrinkled coat of skin.
I followed her into the room whose door she had opened. A score of bulbs burned nakedly and scorched my eyes. When I could control my vision I looked round the room. Every inch of wall and window had been pasted over with photographs of Carla, lurid photographs which made Van Drooft's seem like child's play. An unmade bed occupied most of the room, but there was also a stool and a dressing table upon which stood the telephone. The mirror over the table had been pasted up with photographs of Carla.
"Where is Carla?" she asked me suddenly.
"When was the last time you saw her?"
She sank to the edge of the bed and her thighs moved apart, revealing her thick powdered crack.
"The last time?" she asked herself. "Last night. We had a party last night. They all came."
"It couldn't have been last night," I said softly.
Her face was full of hatred. "I tell you it was last night," she screamed. "You were here too. I remember. You were the one we nailed to the wall." She jumped up suddenly. "Have you got it?"
"Got what?"
She started digging at my trousers, and I backed away.
"You have got it," she cried. "I felt it. When Catla comes back, we'll finish you off. We'll take it away from you."
I realized there would be little use in trying to talk to this woman, but I made one desperate effort to penetrate her mind.
"Carla said," I told her, "that you were to tell me about that party."
"Don't lie to me," she sneered. "You managed to get away. You managed to live. You still have your bomb. Let me see it."
"No."
"Fuck me and then I'll cut it off."
"No."
Then she tried to tempt me. She moved round the room, mincing and waltzing. She dropped herself upon the bed, let her hands stray across the long flat breasts, circle over the belly and draw wide the lips of her purple ravaged woman.
"Put it into me here, " she moaned and began to cry.
"No. I'm afraid I'll have to be leaving."
"Fuck me a little; just a very little," she sighed through her tears.
I confess that I was saddened by her. I said, "If I do, will you tell me about the party?"
"Yes, all about the party. There were so many of them There were so many people."
I approached her and stood at the side of the bed. Her hands came away from her loins, reached to my trousers and undid the buttons. When she pulled my underwear down, I closed my eyes and let her play with my penis. It seemed like hours before it began to stiffen and rise. Her soft damp hands stroked me tenderly. With my eyes still closed, I lifted myself over her. The soft hand led my member to the flaming sheath.
"All at once," she hissed. "It must go in all at once."
She raised her body, poised my penis, and than thrust herself forward so that when contact was made, I was forced in to the hilt.
My scream echoed against the walls.
I have never known such agony as I experienced at that moment. It was as if blades were cutting into my rod. Opening my eyes, I stared down at the woman's insane ecstatic face.-I was afraid to move, fearing that I might damage myself seriously, but the pain was so intense, I could not think of leaving it in. With one blast of courage, I pulled myself back, going through hell as my organ emerged. When it was completely withdrawn, I looked down at it: it was a mess of scratches and abrasions.' and blood came from some of the cuts.
Emma Deligny's eyes were wide open and she stared with incredible excitement at my bruised member.
"More," she sighed. "More."
I wouldn't even answer her, and suddenly I saw her body begin to shake and tremble. Her knees shot open and closed, bringing her flabby thighs together again and again. I could tell, of course, that she was approaching her climax, and yet her eyes never moved from my instrument which now I was wiping clean with my handkerchief.
"Oh, oh," she sobbed. "Look how you suffer."
Her body heaved itself into the air and the bed groaned under her fall. Again she heaved, her thighs sprang together more and more rapidly, her moans were more frequent and noisier. At that moment I noticed the glass pitcher on her dressing table. Approaching it, I saw that it was full of coffee, turned cold. I took the pitcher up, returned to the woman, and as she throbbed toward her orgasm, I poured the coffee in one big splash at her body.
She sat up enraged, trying to catch her breath.
"What hideous device," I shouted, "have you got in your cunt, you filthy woman?"
That seemed to calm her down, and she said:
"It hurt you. It tore you."
"Not as badly, perhaps, as you would have liked."
I adjusted my trousers and started to the door of the room. She jumped out of bed and moved between me and the door.
"Carla," she said, remembering. "Did you bring Carla?"
"Yes," I told her. "She's outside. I'll tell her to come in."
With one violent wrench, I pulled her from the door, went from the room and through the first dark room, and fled from the house, slamming the door behind me.
Away, let me get away. Let me get away.
The words turned over and over in my head as my car sped from the street to the boulevard.
EIGHT
It was not from potential disgust but from sheer terror that I decided not to pay my sixth visit. The minutes I spent with Emma Deligny left me not so much with a vivid impression of horror but of cumulative horror, of Carla's life going in a determined line toward greater and greater perversion-ending in death by perversion.
And I felt that the sixth name on Carla's list might involve personal danger to myself. So it was with a sense of terror and uncertainty that I told myself I would not make the final call. Still, the problem turned itself over and over in my mind, and by the time I thought my decision definite, I was once more thrust into doubt by finding the newspaper which had first told me of Carla's death.
That night I dreamed about her, but this dream was altogether different from the other, the one that had come to me at the first stages of my quest. In this one, Carla wept. Nothing existed but her weeping.
I said: Why are you crying? But she wouldn't reply. Instinctively I realized the nature of her problem. She was dead. That one particular aspect of her life-its end-remained for me a mystery.
When I woke, I knew there was no alternative. And so, that very day I rode upon a plane, a train, and a bus; and at four in the afternoon I descended into the marketplace of Naire, a small village not an hour away from the Spanish border. I left my bag in the hamlet's only hotel, and asked the proprietor where I might find the Villa des Fleurs.
"Are you going up there?" he asked me.
"Yes."
"It will be no use. He sees no one."
"Who are you talking about."
"Well, the master of the villa: Monsieur Montrose." That was the name on Carla's list: Serge Montrose. 'Yes," I said to the proprietor. "That's who I'm going to see."
"He won't see you. The servants will never let you through the gate."
"Nevertheless, I'll try."
He shrugged and indicated the small road that led out of the village. There was no way to Montrose's place except by foot, and since it was a good climb, I started out at once. It was a beautiful walk, and I could see the villa itself a half-hour before I reached it. Placed like a citadel on a sloping hill, its view governed the village.
The house was well-named, for flowers lay everywhere around it. When I approached the gate, I admired the well-kept lawn, then pulled at the bell. A servant-girl opened the front door, came down to me, but kept the gate locked between us.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I've come to see Monsieur Montrose."
"I'm 'sorry, but Monsieur Montrose sees no one."
"He may be willing to see me. Will you tell him that Howard Cunningham, an American friend of Carla, would like to have a few words with him?"
"I'm sorry but-"
"Please ask him!"
She turned and went back into the house, leaving the door open behind her. I was kept waiting a considerable time before I saw anyone come back into the doorway. And this time, it was not the girl but an enormous old man. His bulk hung on the threshold. His fat face bore a huge white beard and where he wasn't bald his hair was white and long.
"What do you want?" he roared at me across the distance.
"Are you Montrose."
"Why do you want to know."
"I come at the request of Carla."
"She's dead."
I nodded, but decided to be silent and wait for his move. His accent had surprised me, for although he bore a French name he did not have a French accent. And also there was something about his presence that brought a memory to mind.
"I won't see you," he shouted. "Go back where you came from."
On a wild hunch, I yelled back at him: "If I leave without seeing you, you'll have reason to regret it, Baron Avron."
He came straight down the path and opened the gate for me.
"She told you?" he hissed at me. "Yes," I lied.
We looked at each other with equal amounts of disgust.
"If she weren't already dead," he said, "I would kill her again."
"Again?" The word shook me, but did not noticeably disturb him.
"How much do you want?" he said coldly. "I don't want anything from you."
"What have you come here for."
"To find Carla's murderer."
"Murderer," he said with a sneer. "There was no murder involved. It was a pleasure for both of us."
"Especially for her, I suppose."
He had moved away from the gate and dropped his huge body into a chair on the lawn. I sat down beside him.
"She told you about our arrangement?" he asked me.
"No."
"Then how did you know-"
I thought more quickly than I ever had. "She left me a letter before her death." This was as ambiguous as I could make it.
"I'll tell you then, Mr. Cunningham, that twenty years ago I was going to kill her. She begged me not to because of our child, but since I could no longer bear living with her, and since I couldn't face the disgrace of a public separation, it was decided that I would be the one to 'die'. In exchange for thus I would have the honor of killing her in my own fashion on her fortieth birthday. So my death took place. I bought new papers, a new identity, and this villa where I spend only part of my time. I make frequent visits to other places-in fact, during the past twenty years I've made frequent visits to Carla. She even told me of her love for you. Love for you! No one in all these past twenty years has ever done for Carla what I could do, what I did do, from the night we married to the night she died."
"I want you to tell me about her death."
"And then you'll tell the police?"
"No. You'll tell them."
"I'll make a deal with you, Cunningham. I'll tell you about Carla's death, but in exchange for it you'll let me destroy myself. You won't tell the police."
"I can't agree. You seem to be an expert at living after death."
"You can take my word. Accept my deal, not for my sake but for the sake of my name-and for the daughter."
I felt no sympathy at all for him, but I thought that it would, should I not accept his offer, only mean useless pain for Angela.
"All right I agree," I told him.
"Good. I am grateful."
"Never mind your gratitude. Tell me about the murder."
"It was simple. The arrangement had been that on her fortieth birthday, Carla would take a room at a certain hotel whose owner was well paid for his silence. Soon after she entered the room, I followed her with the curious alcohol burner that the police discovered. I also brought with me the penis in which Carla rejoiced and an enormous iron rod. I lit the alcohol burner and placed the rod on top of it to heat.
"We undressed. Carla had grown lovelier with every year. Maturity had brought to her body anything it might have lacked in youth Who has seen anything as superb as those ever-swelling breasts that bloomed out, round, firm, yielding? I stroked her nipples, feeling them stiffen in my fingers. Throwing her to her knees, I forced my member into her mouth; it was an easy task for her to take all of it-an easy and delightful one. Her. plump lips pressed upon it; her moist tongue licked it; the flesh of her mouth yielded its heat to my stiffness. Then she licked at my balls, her tongue flickering at my sack.
"She lay down upon the floor and I joined her, pushing my face into that oily groove I knew so well. I rubbed it with my heard, then put my tongue to it, sliding along the length of the crack, tickling her clitoris, plunging into the wide, expectant hole.
" 'Your moment has come,' I said.
" 'Hurry. I can't wait.'
"Even the prospect of death was not enough to lessen her excitement
"Her knees drew back and I came between the thighs. My phallus was at her door. I tapped gently, entered slightly, drew back, entered again, withdrew again. Her hole twitched for my full penetration, and at last I lowered myself, easing my member into the depths of her body. Her mouth dribbled with her passion. She clutched at me and we drove at each other fiercely, my tool pounding her.
"I sensed the approach of her climax and turned so that we lay on our sides. While she shook with rapture I reached up and took hold of the end of the rod that was upon the alcohol burner. Half of it was red-hot. I removed it and at the same instant I turned myself so that Carla lay above me. My free hand spread her buttocks, found her anus, stretched with anticipation. In a frenzy she shook all over me, bringing us closer to our orgasm. Then, holding the rod tight, I plunged it downward, never hesitating as it drove into Carla. At that instant our juices were mingling, and the smell of burning flesh added to my pleasure.
"Whether Carla's pleasure was greater or less, I cannot say, for when I pushed her away, she was already dead. And I could not resist having her once more, plunging myself into the growing coolness of her body.
"Afterwards I dressed, gave some more money to the owner of the hotel, and took the next train south."
My face must have been full of disgust because he said: "No, don't look at me that way. How easy it would have been for Carla to tell the police or anyone, in fact, about our rendezvous. How easy it would have been for her to prevent her death. But you must see, Mr. Cunningham, she wanted it to happen. She wanted to know, while at the height of her full sexual powers, what it would be like to know death in the midst of life's greatest pleasure. She has learned: at her own consent."
Clearly, he was right, but nonetheless as maniacal as she had been: as she had always been, for even in the moments of our love, she must have known that one day she would submit herself to this outrageous experiment-he was equally mad.
"Still," I said to him. "I hold you to our agreement. Either you kill yourself or I turn you over to the police."
"Must I do it at once?"
"At once!"
Groaning, he raised his bulk from the chair and walked up the path and into the .house. I couldn't bring myself to follow him, and besides I didn't really doubt he would carry out the agreement.
I left my chair and walked to the gate. But as I opened it, I heard him shout:
"Mr. Cunningham!"
J looked toward the house. He was at a window on the upper floor.
"It is a pity," he shouted down to me, "that death could not be as interesting for everyone as it was for
I could say nothing. I felt like a murderer-and yet this was for Arvon the lesser of two evils. I was wrong to seat myself in judgment upon him, but how could I say-well, all right, you old madman, go on living, go on killing madwomen? I would have to tell the police, and in doing that, I would harm the most innocent creature of all: Angela. For, after all, she would be the one to suffer.
Arvon disappeared from the window and returned an instant later with a gun in his hand. For a moment, I thought he might take aim at me. But at last he raised it to his own temple.
"Goodbye," he shouted. "I am truly sorry to have had so much more of it than you."
I wanted to shout stop, but instead I lowered my eyes, and waited for the report. The blast was brief and much less noisy than I had expected. When I looked up I saw the enormous man swaying forward, bending deeply. And then he fell from the window, broke through space, and crashed into a circle of flowers at the back of the lawn.
Servants appeared from everywhere, some of them shrieking. I thought it best to slip away quietly, but then the maid who had come to the gate earlier saw me.
"What happened?" she shouted with horror.
"It was an accident."
"An accident?"
"Yes, he was going to show me that gun he has there. He lifted it to his temple jokingly. Apparently, he didn't know it was loaded. It went off, and he fell out the window."
"How terrible," they all agreed, and told me he was the kindest and most generous of masters.
"Still," I consoled them, "he didn't know what was happening. None of us could ask for a faster end."
They telephoned for the police who, upon arriving, told me I'd have to stay for the inquest. This required that I spend two more days in Naire where there was absolutely nothing to do. I walked and talked to some of the locals who had rather a dread of me as if I were a murderer.
At the inquest I repeated my story and I think that no one really believed me. They all felt-although they never indicated this by word-that I was responsible for Arvon's (or Montrose's) death. The circumstances were strange enough: I appeared in Naire, to which strangers rarely come; I was admitted to the Montrose Villa, to which no one was allowed; and within two hours of all this an old, cold, but respectable man dies.
In any case, the verdict brought in was accidental death. Obviously, the town would have preferred murder or suicide under compulsion or even suicide. But it was accidental death.
I left Naire twenty minutes after the verdict was announced and was back in Paris during the middle of the night. It was all over, I told myself as I shredded Carla's list and threw the pieces away. There was only one more visit to be made.
And I was certain that one would be pleasant.
NINE
I telephoned Angela the next morning.
"Hello," she said. "I thought you'd never get in touch with me again."
"I've been busy all the time. I told you your mother had asked me to see some people."
I know. There must have been a lot of people. Or else they had a lot to say."
"It's a bit of both actually. You're sounding in much better spirits than last time."
"So are you," she said.
"I confess I am in better spirits. Or I've just become so."
"And why is that?" she asked with a smile in her voice. "Because I look forward to seeing you."
"Then come at once."
"No sooner said than done."
She was waiting for me at the door of the mansion. Her dress was still one of mourning, but it was not so somber as the one she wore the first time we met. This one was paradoxical for it mourned only halfway over her breasts. The fresh young mounds protruded above the cloth: little white lies of life. And also the dress was of very thin summer cloth so that through it I could see the hidden roundness of the underside of her breasts and the deep dark roses of her teats. Lower down was the shadowed outline of panties clutching eagerly at her loins.
"I am happy to see you again," she said and put her cheek forward for a kiss, another paternal kiss. "And I'm happy to see you."
Taking my hand, she led me into the salon, poured us each a sherry, and then sat down beside me on the sofa.
"Well," she began. "Did mother send you to see interesting people?"
"Fairly," I mumbled. "Financial men and that sort-"
"How dull for you," she smiled. "I thought mother never bothered with those things herself."
"No, I suppose not but-"
"And isn't it odd, but our lawyer was here just last night and said everything was all cleared up."
My embarrassment could not be hidden. "Well, the people I saw were financial people, but I saw them socially, not for any business reasons."
"I see," she said, and to my astonishment she added: "You mean these were her nighttime friends."
"What are you talking about?"
'You know very well what I'm talking about!"
"I haven't the vaguest idea," I said, but the lie was evident
"Oh, please, Howard-do you mind if I call you Howard?"
"Of course not. It pleases me." I placed my hand over hers beside me on the sofa.
"Well then, Howard, can you think it possible I've lived with a person twenty years and never noticed that she slipped out at night?"
"Perhaps she went for a walk," I suggested.
"No. You know as well as I do that at night my mother was a wild woman. I've known about this ever since the 'war when I was still a little girl and I met a man who had seen me walking with mother. He knew her from that terrible yacht. And he told me all about it."
"Did you tell her you knew?"
"No, never. She would have died. It would have broken her heart. As if I would have loved her less because she needed what all women need." I felt her hand tremble under mine and I put my arm round her, drawing her close.
'You're terribly sweet," I said. "How lucky Carla was to have had you."
"One needn't be only Carla," she flashed, "in order to have me. But I want you to tell me something."
"What is it?"
"About mother's death."
Indeed, I didn't dare to. "I know no more about it than you."
"Tell me, Howard, who was Serge Montrose?"
I looked at her, incredulous. "However did you hear of him?"
'. "There was a small item in the papers about that inquest you were a witness at. It had something to do with mother, didn't it?"
"No, nothing at all. He was an old friend of mine."
"In the papers it said you'd never met him before and that one of the servants said they'd heard you shout something like 'Baron' at him. And he wasn't a baron, they said."
"It was a mistake."
"I don't believe you."
"It's better that you do," I said, keeping my voice even but trying to warn her it was wiser that she asked no more questions. Yet she persisted:
"I want to know the truth. I'll bother you day and night until you tell me."
"I'd love to be bothered by you."
"Then tell me or I won't."
"All right," I said. "The details are uninteresting. But this is approximately the story: you father didn't die soon after your birth. It was a hoax."
"Did mother know this?"
"No," I lied. "Not until the end. He sent her word of this and asked for an appointment. She was afraid he would kill her, as in fact he did."
"But why?"
"He was insane. There is no asking why. People act as they must."
"Go on."
"Well, through a series of accidents I learned of Montrose and on a hunch went to see him. It turned out he was Baron Arvon and he committed suicide rather than live to see the family name soiled if and when I told the police. I wouldn't have told the police, of course, on account of you."
She covered her face with her hands. "It's terrible. Terrible. I feel so alone."
"Don't. I'm your friend."
She looked up at me. "Yes, I believe you are."
She raised her face to mine and our lips joined. The full young mouth opened to my tongue, receiving the full measure of my kiss. My hand reached over the flimsy plumpness of the cloth upon her breast and I closed upon the firm flesh. Its warmth and softness yielded under my fingers and Angela sighed through the kiss.
"Let me take your dress off," I said.
"Wait." She stood up and went to the door, locking it. When she returned to me, I rose and lifted her dress, pulling it above her head. She stood before me, her pink flesh glowing, her uncovered breasts exposed to me. I cupped one in each hand, massaging them so that my skin rubbed the small tender nipples.
"How beautiful you are," I said.
She dropped her panties to the floor and I saw the triangle of auburn hair.
"Please," she whispered. "You get undressed too."
Hurriedly, I began removing my things, and as I stripped, she said: "You know, Howard, I've never seen a naked man before."
"Then look at one," I told her when my things were off.
She studied my body closely, observing my chest, my shoulders, my arms, my belly. It was an effort for her to look lower, but she did and her face pinked. Approaching me, her hand reached to my penis. She touched it lightly at first, then rubbed its underside, and at last clutched it in her hands.
"What a lovely thing," she said.
Then she put her hand under my scrotum and pushed it gently as if weighing my balls. She released them and pressed herself close to me, rubbing her belly against my member. My hand reached down between her thighs and they opened slightly. I pushed my way in, my fingers stroking the hair, the narrow split between. A gentle moisture sprang as if hardly more than perspiration.
"I want to kiss you there," I said. "I'd love you to."
We both sank to the rug, and I took a head-to-foot position, hoping that I would not have to ask her to suck me. I moved my head between her legs, my face joining her woman's parts, rich with the smell of woman I moved my tongue slowly back and forth; she shivered and brought her thighs tight against my head. Suddenly I felt her soft lips kissing the head of my penis and I thrust at her. Her lips spread and my rod moved slowly into the warmth of Angela's mouth.
I continued licking her, rolling my tongue again and again across her clitoris. When I brought it to the opening of her sheath, her excitement made her jump slightly. I forced my tongue through the tightness of the threshold. Her mouth was laboring passionately at my penis.
"Now," I said, moving away from her.
Eyes closed, she said nothing as I drew over her. I pushed her knees back and glided my penis across the moisture of her woman. Then I aimed the head at her little hole and forced slightly; then a bit more. She moaned.
"Does it hurt?"
She shook her head. I thrust forward once more, but now the penetration could only be accomplished by a powerful lunge. I readied her by easing my penis in and out of the opening, and when she had begun to sigh, I pushed forward, springing the length of my member into her.
A cry broke from her lips.
"Does it hurt?" I asked again.
"How can anything you do give me anything but pleasure?" she said softly.
I moved my penis in her, drew it half-out, then once more sent it in to the hilt. This movement pleased her, and I repeated it, and again, continuing with variations until suddenly she was choosing the rhythm.
My body rested upon hers and our mouths met in a long kiss, a kiss that continued through the thrusts of our loins, through the increasing pressure of excitement and our quickening movements. I felt her come close to her climax and I quickened my thrusts, making them more regular. Her teeth bit my lip; her fingers scraped across my shoulders; her legs held tight round my back. We thrust and pushed and groaned together into our orgasm.
"How wonderful that was," she said later.
I could only nod my agreement. My hands stroked her fiery body.
"No wonder mother loved you so much," she whispered. "Were you always so good at it?"
I smiled. "With a woman as wonderful as you."
"Will you always do it to me? As often as I want?"
"More often."
"It couldn't be more often, since I'll want it every minute of the day."
"Only the day? What about the nights?"
"The nights." She laughed. "Well, Howard, I think the nights will be a mystery."
