Quiet Days in Clichy (11 page)

Perhaps Mara had been sent to remind me that I would never be happy until I found Christine again . . .

A week later, at the home of a Hindu dancer, I was introduced to an extraordinarily beautiful Danish girl newly arrived from Copenhagen. She was decidedly not “my type,” but she was ravishingly beautiful, no denying it. A sort of legendary Norse figure come to life. Naturally, everybody
was courting her. I paid no obvious attention to her, although my eyes were constantly following her, until we were thrown together in the little room where the drinks were being served. By this time everybody, except the dancer, had had too much to drink. The Danish beauty was leaning against the wall with a glass in her hand. Her reserve had broken down. She had the air of one who was waiting to be mussed up. As I approached she said with a seductive grin: “So you're the man who writes those terrible books?” I didn't bother to reply. I put my glass down and closed in on her, kissing her blindly, passionately, savagely. She came out of the embrace pushing me violently away. She was not angry. On the contrary, I sensed that she was expecting me to repeat the attack. “Not here,” she said aloud.

The Hindu girl had begun to dance; the guests politely took their places about the room. The Danish girl, whose name turned out to be Christine, led me into the kitchen on the pretext of making me a sandwich.

“You know I'm a married woman,” she
said, almost immediately we were alone. “Yes, and I have two children, two beautiful children. Do you like children?”

“I like
you
,” I said, giving her another embrace and kissing her hungrily.

“Would you marry me,” she said, “if I were free?”

Just like that she popped it, without any preliminaries. I was so astonished that I said the only thing a man can say under the circumstances. I said Yes.

“Yes,” I repeated, “I'd marry you tomorrow . . . Right now, if you say the word.”

“Don't be so quick,” she sallied, “I may take you at your word.” This was said with such forthrightness that for an instant I was dead sober, almost frightened. “Oh, I'm not going to ask you to marry me immediately,” she continued, observing my dismay. “I merely wanted to see if you were the marrying kind. My husband is dead. I have been a widow for over a year.”

Those words had the effect of making me lecherous. Why had she come to Paris? Obviously to enjoy herself. Hers was the typical cold seductive charm of the Northern
woman in whom prudery and lasciviousness battle for supremacy. I knew she wanted me to talk love. Say anything you like, do anything you like, but use the language of love—the glamorous, romantic, sentimental words which conceal the ugly, naked reality of the sexual assault.

I placed my hand squarely over her cunt, which was steaming like manure under her dress, and said: “
Christine
, what a wonderful name! Only a woman like you could own such a romantic name. It makes me think of icy fjords, of fir trees dripping with wet snow. If you were a tree I would pull you up by the roots. I'd carve my initials in your trunk . . .” I rattled off more silly nonsense, all the while clutching her firmly, pushing my fingers into her gluey crack. I don't know how far it would have gone, there in the kitchen, if our hostess had not interrupted us. She was a lascivious bitch, too. I had to mush it up with both of them at the same time. Out of politeness we finally went back to the big room to watch the Hindu girl's performance. We stood well back from the others, in a dark corner. I had my arm around Christine; with my
free hand I did what I could with the other.

The party came to an abrupt end because of a fist fight between two drunken Americans. In the confusion Christine left with the jaded-looking Count who had brought her to the place. Fortunately I got her address before leaving.

When I got home I gave Carl a glowing account of the affair. He was all a-twitter. We must invite her for dinner—the sooner the better. He would ask a friend of his to come, a new one, whom he had met at the Cirque Médrano. She was an acrobat, he said. I didn't believe a word of it, but I grinned and said it would be fine.

The evening came. Carl had prepared the dinner and, as usual, had bought the most expensive wines. The acrobat arrived first. She was alert, intelligent, spry, with cute diminutive features which, because of her frizzy coiffure, made her look somewhat like a Pomeranian dog. She was one of those happy-go-lucky souls who fuck on sight. Carl didn't rave about her to the extent he usually did when he made a new find. He was genuinely relieved, however,
that he had found someone to replace the morose Eliane.

“How does she look to you?” he asked me on the side. “Do you think she'll do? Not too bad, is she?” Then, as an afterthought—“By the way, Eliane seems quite stuck on you. Why don't you look her up? She's not a bad lay, I can vouch for that. You don't have to waste time on preliminaries; just whisper a few kind words and push her over. She's got a cunt that works like a suction pump . . .”

With this he beckoned to Corinne, his acrobatic friend, to join us. “Turn around,” he said, “I want to show him your ass.” He rubbed his hand over her rump appraisingly. “Feel
that
, Joey,” he said. “It's like velvet, what?”

I was just in the act of following his suggestion when there was a knock at the door. “That must be
your
cunt,” said Carl, going to the door and opening it. At sight of Christine he let out a howl and, throwing his arms around her, he dragged her into the room, exclaiming—“She's marvelous, marvelous! Why didn't you tell me how beautiful she was?”

I thought he would go off his nut with admiration. He danced around the room and clapped his hands like a child. “Oh, Joey, Joey,” he said, fairly licking his chops in anticipation, “She's
wonderful
. She's the best cunt you ever dug up!”

Christine caught the word cunt. “What does it mean?” she asked.

“It means you're beautiful, dazzling, radiant,” said Carl, holding her hands ecstatically. His eyes were moist as a puppy's.

Christine's English was almost elementary; Corinne knew even less. So we spoke French. As an appetizer, we had some Alsatian wine. Someone put on a record, whereupon Carl began to sing in a loud piercing voice, his face red as a beet, his lips wet, his eyes gleaming. Every now and then he would go up to Corinne and give her a wet smack on the mouth—to show that he hadn't forgotten her. But everything he said was addressed to Christine.

“Christine!” he would say, caressing her arm, stroking her like a cat. “
Christine
! What a magical name!” (Actually he detested the name; he used to say that it was a stupid name, fit for a cow or a spavined
horse.) “Let me think,” and he would roll his eyes heavenward, as if struggling to capture the precise metaphor. “It's like fragile lace in moonlight. No, not moonlight—
twilight
. Anyway, it's fragile, delicate, like your soul . . . Give me another drink, someone. I can think of better images than that.”

Christine, in her down-to-earth way, interrupted the performance by inquiring if dinner were soon ready. Carl pretended to be shocked. “How can a beautiful creature like you think of food at such a moment?” he exclaimed.

But Corinne was hungry too. We sat down, Carl still red as a beet. He shifted his watery gaze from one to the other, as if uncertain which one to lick first. He was definitely in a mood to lick them from head to foot. After he had taken a few mouthfuls, he got up and slobbered over Corinne. Then, as if he had a dose of catnip, he sidled around to Christine and went to work on her. The effect was pleasing but left them slightly dazed. They must have wondered just how the evening would terminate.

As yet I hadn't touched Christine. I was curious to observe her behavior—how she talked, how she laughed, how she ate and drank. Carl kept filling the glasses, as if it were lemonade we were drinking. Christine seemed shy, I thought, but the wine was soon to take effect. It was not long before I felt a hand on my leg, squeezing it. I grasped it and put it between my legs. She drew it away, as if frightened.

Carl now began plying her with questions about Copenhagen, about her children, about her married life. (He had forgotten that her husband was dead.) Suddenly, apropos of nothing, he looked at her with a malicious grin, and said: “
Ecoute, petite
, what I'd like to know is this—does he give you a good fuck now and then?”

Christine went scarlet. Looking him in the eye, she answered stonily: “
Il est mort, mon mari
.”

Anyone else would have been mortified. Not Carl. He rose to his feet with a natural, good-humored expression and, going over to her, he kissed her chastely on the brow. “
Je t'aime
,” he said, and trotted
back to his seat. A moment later he was babbling about spinach and how good it tasted raw.

There is something about Northern people I don't understand. I've never met one, male or female, whom I could really warm up to. I don't mean, in voicing this, that Christine's presence acted as a pall. On the contrary, the evening rolled along like a well-oiled machine. Dinner over, Carl moved his acrobat over to the divan. I lay down on the rug with Christine, in the next room. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but once I had gotten her legs open and the juice flowing, she went at it with gusto. After a few spasms she began to weep. She was weeping over her dead husband, so she confessed. I couldn't make it out. I felt like saying, “Why bring
that
up now?” I endeavored to find out what it was, precisely, that she was thinking of with respect to her departed husband. To my amazement, she said: “What would he think of me if he could see me lying here on the floor with you?” That struck me as so ridiculous that I felt like spanking her. An unholy desire possessed me to make
her do something which would warrant a true display of shame and remorse.

Just then I heard Carl get up to go to the bathroom. I called to him to join us in a drink. “Wait a minute,” he said, “that bitch is bleeding like a stuck pig.” When he came out of the bathroom I told him, in English, to try his luck with Christine. Whereupon I excused myself and went to the bathroom. When I returned, Christine was still lying on the floor, smoking a cigarette. Carl was lying beside her, gently trying to pry her legs open. She lay there cool as a cucumber, her legs crossed, a blank expression on her face. I poured some more drinks and went into the other room to chat with Corinne. She too was lying back with a cigarette between her lips, ready, I suppose, for another bout if anyone happened along. I sat beside her and talked a blue streak in order to give Carl time to get his end in.

Just when I thought that everything was going well Christine suddenly popped into the room. In the darkness she stumbled against the divan. I caught hold of her and
pulled her over beside Corinne. In a moment Carl also came in and flung himself on the divan. Everybody was silent. We shifted about, trying to make ourselves comfortable. In pawing around, my hand touched a bare breast. It was round and firm, the nipple taut and tempting. I closed my mouth over it. It was Christine's perfume that I recognized. Moving my head up to seek her mouth, I felt a hand sliding into my fly. As I slid my tongue into her mouth I shifted slightly to permit Corinne to extricate my cock. In a moment I felt her warm breath on it. While she nibbled away I clutched Christine passionately, biting her lips, her tongue, her throat. She seemed to be in an unusual state of passion, making the queerest grunts and spasmodic movements of the body. With her arms around my neck she held me in a vise; her tongue had thickened, as though swollen with blood. I struggled to get my prick free of Corinne's molten furnace of a mouth, but in vain. Gently I tried to wiggle it free, but she kept after it like a fish, securing it with her teeth.

Meanwhile Christine was twitching more violently, as though in the throes of an orgasm. I managed to extricate my arm, which had been pinned under her back, and slid my hand down her torso. Just below the waist I felt something hard; it was covered with hair. I dug my fingers into it. “Hey, it's
me
,” said Carl, pulling his head away. With that Christine started pulling me away from Corinne, but Corinne refused to let go. Carl now threw himself on Christine who was beside herself. I was lying so that I was now able to tickle her ass while Carl dug away at her. I thought she would go mad, from the way she was wriggling about and moaning and gibbering.

Suddenly it was over. At once Christine bounded out of the bed and made for the bathroom. For a moment or two the three of us were silent. Then, as if we had been hit in the same crazy place, we burst into peals of laughter. Carl laughed loudest of all—one of his crazy laughs which threatened never to come to an end.

We were still laughing when the bathroom
door was suddenly flung open. There stood Christine in a blaze of light, her face flaming red, demanding angrily to know where her wraps were.

“You're disgusting,” she yelled. “Let me out of here!”

Carl made an attempt to soothe her ruffled feelings but I cut it short by saying, “Let her go if she wants to.” I didn't even get up to look for her things. I heard Carl say something to her in a muffled voice, and then I heard Christine's angry voice saying, “Leave me alone—you're a filthy pig!” With that the door slammed and she was gone.

“That's your Scandinavian beauty for you,” I said.

“Yah, yah,” muttered Carl, pacing back and forth with head down. “It's bad, it's bad,” he mumbled.

“What's bad?” I said. “Don't be a fool! We gave her the time of her life.”

He began to titter in crazy fashion. “What if she had the clap?” he said, and made a dash for the bathroom, where he noisily gargled his throat. “Listen, Joey,”
he shouted, spitting out a mouthful, “what do you suppose made her so angry? Because we laughed so hard?”