Emmanuelle (10 page)

Her fingers were as deft, skilled, and efficient as her tongue. They grazed Emmanuelle’s clitoris, then both hands, held together, plunged resolutely into the depths of her flesh, stretching the walls of her vagina and massaging the resistant protuberance of her womb with admirable animation and discernment. She let herself be drawn into orgasm without resistance, gathering her strength to make her pleasure as intense as possible, opening herself and thrusting against the hand that was probing her. She had the feeling that lava was welling up from her and flowing, thick and hot, along Ariane. When she finally slid down the ladder, unconscious, Ariane caught her in her arms and held her tightly. If she had been able to see Ariane’s eyes at that moment, she might have been surprised to discover that they had lost their mocking expression.

By the time she came back to her senses, Ariane had regained her usual roguishness and vivacity. She was holding her by the shoulders, arms outstretched.

“Do you have enough strength left to climb up the ladder?” she asked with an affectionate laugh.

Emmanuelle was suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment and looked down at the ground with the expression of a sulky child. Ariane took her chin between her fingers to lift it. She was again very close to her.

“Tell me,” she murmured in a grave, almost choked voice that Emmanuelle had never heard before, “have other women ever done that to you?”

Emmanuelle remained outwardly impassive, but actually her mind was in a turmoil that she herself had difficulty understanding. She decided to ignore the question. Ariane insisted, however, imperious and coaxing at the same time. “Answer me. Haven’t you ever made love with a woman before?”

Emmanuelle stubbornly persisted in her silence, looking like an image of false shame and sullenness. Ariane came still closer, till her lips moved against Emmanuelle’s when she spoke.

“Come to my house,” she said thickly. “Will you?”

But Emmanuelle shook her head.

Ariane kept the rebellious chin in her hand for a long time, but she said nothing more. When at last she stepped back, there was nothing in her sprightly eyes or her mischievous pout to show whether she had been disappointed by Emmanuelle’s refusal and if she was angry.

“Up you go,” she said to her, after having tickled the end of her nose.

Emmanuelle turned around and climbed the ladder. Ariane followed her. Emmanuelle pulled her knit shirt, still wet, down to her waist.

“You’ve forgotten your shirt!” she pointed out to Ariane. “Do you want me to go down and get it for you?”

Ariane made a gesture of sovereign disdain. “Never mind, it’s not worth the trouble . . . it’s ruined, now.”

She threw a towel around her shoulders, with no thought of covering her chest. As they walked toward the garage, she carried the rackets and her colorful cloth bag with one hand and held Emmanuelle’s hand with the other. Groups of people waved to her in passing. She gaily waved back to them, uncovering her bare breasts a little more. Emmanuelle suddenly had the feeling that the whole world was looking at them. She was filled with shame and alarm. She was eager to get away from Ariane, and determined once more not to see her again.

When they reached their cars, Ariane let go of her hand, turned to face her, and finally tied the corners of the towel together, looking at her with a quizzical expression and expectation whose ironic eloquence had no need of words. Emmanuelle again bowed her head; her embarrassment and the disorder of her thoughts were not feigned. Ariane did not insist at all. She leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “See you later, little lamb,” she said blithely. She leapt into her car and drove off, waving goodbye.

When she was gone, Emmanuelle was sorry that she had done nothing to hold her back. She would have liked to see her breasts again. Above all, she would have liked to feel them on her. She suddenly wanted to be naked with Ariane lying naked on top of her, both of them very naked, more naked than they had ever been before. She wanted her breasts to be against her breasts and her sex against her sex. And she wanted to be caressed by a woman’s hands, by a woman’s legs, lips, body . . . Ah, if Ariane had come back at that moment, how Emmanuelle would have given herself to her!

Christopher arrived that same day. He was much more handsome than in his photographs. He had the bearing and the open smile of an English rugby player; his crudely combed blond hair seemed to be struggling against a whirlwind. Emmanuelle immediately felt at ease, as though she were with an old friend. As they were showing him around the garden, she put one arm in Jean’s and the other in Christopher’s.

“I won’t let you make Christopher work all the time,” she said to Jean, demanding her share of their guest’s company in advance. “I want to take him to the
khlongs,
show him the thieves’ market . . .”

“But I’m not on vacation here,” protested Christopher, enchanted.

The double pleasure of seeing Jean again and discovering how happily married he was made that Sunday a glorious occasion for him. He did not hide the admiration Emmanuelle aroused in him.

“That scoundrel Jean is really too lucky,” he exclaimed, giving her an enthusiastic look. “He hasn’t done anything to deserve this!”

“I’m glad he hasn’t,” she said jokingly. “I couldn’t stand a deserving husband!”

They stayed up late, joyful and noisy; they did not go to bed until sleep triumphed over Emmanuelle, closing her eyes as she sat curled up in an armchair under the bougainvillaea that covered the ground-floor terrace. It was not raining. The bullfrogs had fallen silent. The stars had their dry-season color. The middle of August often offers such deceptive respites.

Emmanuelle slept naked, but before going out to have breakfast with Jean on the wide balcony of their bedroom she sometimes put on one of the very short little nightgowns that she bought—partly for the pleasure of trying them on—before leaving Paris. The one she was wearing this morning was transparent, pleated, and almost the same color as her skin. The hem came down only to her groin. Three buttons held it closed at the waist. The slightest breath of air lifted it. She suddenly laughed. “Good heavens, I’d forgotten we have a guest! I’d better put on something a little more decent.”

Jean intervened as she was about to leave. “Absolutely not,” he decreed, “you look much better this way.”

She had no objection, actually, to showing herself in that attire, because she had long been accustomed to being seen naked by all sorts of people. In that respect, Jean’s attitude was a continuation of her parents’. The idea that she ought to put on a dressing gown before appearing in front of them would have seemed as absurd to them as to her. She had bought her nightgowns after her marriage out of coquettishness, not out of modesty.

Christopher was less at ease than his hosts. Sitting opposite Emmanuelle, he could not take his eyes off her breasts, animated by the sunlight shining through the pleats, with their nipples like two spots of blood. When she stood up to bring him biscuits, fruit, and honey, the morning breeze parted her airy gown to her navel, and her astrakhan triangle came so close to his face that he could smell its lily-of-the-valley fragrance.

He did not dare to raise his cup of tea to his lips, for fear his hands might tremble. “What will become of me if I have to stand up?” he thought, panic-stricken. “Or if someone comes to remove the table cloth?”

Emmanuelle fortunately went back into her bedroom before the men had finished eating. Christopher thus had time to recover his self-control.

They were not going to return till dinner. Emmanuelle did not feel like staying home alone all day. She got into her car and went to the center of the city. For an hour she drove around aimlessly, often getting lost, stopping sometimes to go into a store. Once she was frozen in horrified contemplation of a leper. Sitting on the sidewalk, he was moving backward, supporting himself on his decomposing wrists and dragging the stumps of his thighs along the soiled ground. She was so shaken by the sight that she was unable to start the engine of her car. She sat there paralyzed, having forgotten where she wanted to go and the movements she had to make, with her undecayed feet, her healthy, fragile hands . . . Just then she saw someone she recognized coming out of a Chinese shop not far away. She shouted, as though calling for help: “Bee!”

Bee turned around, made a gesture of joyful surprise, and walked over to the car.

“I’ve been looking for you,” said Emmanuelle. And as soon as she said it, she realized that it was true.

“Well, you’re lucky to have found me,” Bee said with amusement, “because I don’t come here often.”

“Naturally she doesn’t believe me,” Emmanuelle thought sadly. “Would you like to have lunch with me?” she asked so imploringly that for a moment Bee did not know what to answer. It was Emmanuelle who broke the silence: “I’ve got an idea! Come home with me. There are plenty of things to eat. And you haven’t seen my house yet.”

“Wouldn’t you rather try some of the local specialties? There’s a very picturesque little restaurant near here. Let me take you to lunch there.”

“No, no!” Emmanuelle said stubbornly. “Some other time. Now that I’ve found you, I want you to come home with me.”

“If you like.” Bee opened the door of the car and sat down beside her.

Emmanuelle blossomed. She suddenly had the feeling of having found herself again, sure of her desires, proud of what she loved, as incapable of pretending as of waiting. She stopped just short of shouting out her joy at the top of her lungs as she drove through the anthill of the city, scorning all caution. She laughed loudly, without a pretext. She seemed to give off rays of light.

Bee looked at her with admiration and a little apprehension.

The elegance and modern interior decor of the house pleased Bee. She praised the flower arrangements, a Japanese talent that Emmanuelle had acquired in Paris; she praised the ceramic furniture, the basins of translucent stone adorned with coral and seashells, and the big wrought-iron mobile that stood in the middle of the room, cumbersome, provocative, rattling with all its bizarre metal foliage.

They ate lunch rapidly. Emmanuelle had lost the power of speech. Her jubilant gaze never left Bee.

Then they visited the garden, despite the burning sun. Emmanuelle guided Bee by the hand through its slips and cuttings. They imagined the beauty of its landscape once its shrubbery would be in bloom.

She plucked a long-stemmed rose and handed it to Bee, who put her fingers around the red corolla and held it against her cheek. Emmanuelle moved her lips forward and kissed the rose.

By the time they went back into the house, sweat was flowing down their faces and necks.

“Shall we take a shower?” Emmanuelle suggested.

Bee acknowledged that it was a good idea.

As soon as they were in her bedroom, Emmanuelle pulled off her clothes as hastily as if they had been on fire. Bee did not begin undressing until Emmanuelle had taken off her last garment. First she said, “What a beautiful body you have!” Then she slowly unbuttoned her collar. When she opened her blouse, which she, too, wore directly over her skin, Emmanuelle could not but notice that Bee’s chest was like a boy’s.

“You see how flat I am,” she said. She did not seem at all humiliated. She enjoyed Emmanuelle’s surprise as she inspected the pink nipples, so small and pale that they seemed prepubescent.

“Do you think it’s ugly?” she asked without much seriousness.

“Oh, no! It’s wonderful!” Emmanuelle cried out so fervently that Bee seemed touched.

“You have a right to be critical if you want to. Your own breasts are magnificent. We form a startling contrast, don’t we?”

But Emmanuelle was now a convert and a fanatic. “What’s so interesting about having big breasts? That’s all you ever see on magazine covers. But with you, it’s so different from other women! It’s so pretty!” Her voice softened a little. “I’ve never seen anything so exciting, really . . . I mean what I say.”

“I admit I find it rather amusing,” said Bee, taking off her skirt. “I don’t think I’d like to have breasts that were too little, but there’s a certain humor in not having any breasts at all, don’t you agree?” She suddenly seemed more loquacious; Emmanuelle could not remember having heard her make so long a speech before. “For a long time, in fact, I lived in dread of seeing my breasts begin to grow. It would have made me feel as if I’d lost all my personality. And I prayed every night, ‘Dear God, please let me never have real breasts.’ I was so good that God gave me my wish!”

“What luck!” exclaimed Emmanuelle. “It would have been terrible if your breasts had grown. I like you so much this way!”

She also felt that Bee had admirable legs, so long and with such pure lines that they belonged in a fashion drawing and did not seem quite real. Her narrow hips and the flexible slenderness of her waist added to the impression of aristocratic elegance. But what struck Emmanuelle still more was the extraordinarily protruding shaved pubis that appeared when Bee had taken off her panties. She had never seen one that stood out so prominently, or was so swollen with female sexuality. She told herself that she knew nothing in the world more beautiful or worthier of being loved. The absence of hair revealed the slit of Bee’s sex, which rose high and was deeply and sharply cut, offering itself to the spectator’s gaze without ambiguity. There was a kind of defiance in the fact that her boyish chest was tanned the same as the rest of her body, so that one could not help assuming that it had also been exposed to the sun and that others had been able to contemplate that hermaphroditic nudity at leisure. And, despite her distant grace, the smooth, split bulge at the bottom of her belly was so sensual, and thrust itself forward so invitingly, that Emmanuelle felt as if her own sex were being probed by a hand. She knew she had to possess Bee without delay; that voluptuous furrow, that crack, had to be opened to her . . . Oh, that crack! The sight of it made her tremble. She opened her mouth to say what she wanted, but just then Bee turned toward the bathroom.