Happiness

by Denis Robert

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Blaise Cendrars, Lice. Do you know it? It’s about his time in the trenches during the First World War, when he lost an arm…’

  ‘What kind of bra are you wearing today?’

  ‘Dark red, silk. And quite a low-cut blouse.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit tight?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Take it off but keep the blouse on in case someone comes in.’

  For thirty seconds the line is almost silent, just our breathing and the rustle of fabric, then her voice comes back on, a little hoarse.

  I took off my bra. I couldn’t bring myself to call you ‘tu’. I had already done this ages ago with a boyfriend. He went too fast. But you were taking your time.

  I asked you if you were still masturbating. You said ‘Yes’. That was enough for me. We kept on for a good hour before you exploded.

  We should have known from the start that everything we said and did and thought only existed for one thing. Sex. Not necessarily pleasure but, necessarily, sex.

  We had our telephone period, before moving on to more serious things. The point of the game was always to try to go further. She put her trust in me. She thought I knew where we were going.

  I’ve often worried about not being able to get an erection. After a night with her, I don’t worry any more. But still, I don’t love her. I mean, I am not in love with her.

  At night I let you turn round and I snuggle into all the hollows that you make in your body. I could adjust to any movement you make but in fact you don’t move much. I always hold your penis in my hand. It just lies there on my palm, fast asleep. Sometimes I feel it trembling a little and then I want to wrap my fingers round it again, to enclose it and start gently moving my hand. Up and down, up and down, pulling the skin, witnessing the miracle of blood flowing, feeling the veins swelling and knowing that this erection is for me. But I leave my fingers open because you must sleep. It is already very late.

  One of my friends, Ernesto, thinks that what unites a man and a woman more than anything else is a perfect fit between their reproductive organs. Ernesto seriously believes that love is a biological lottery. His theory, which he never tires of repeating, is obscene. We’ve all seen ill-matched couples, a tall person with a short one, a beauty and a beast, so how do we explain this phenomenon? According to Ernesto, God dreamt up the idea of six or seven thousand million individuals with male and female connecting parts. Only a tiny proportion of sexual organs will properly match. This isn’t a matter of size or depth, nor of movement. It’s to do with something else. A chemical phenomenon. Hormonal magic. A matter of luck, blood temperature, moistening, bumps and hollows. Ernesto talks of ‘capillarity’.

  He also says that perfect happiness in a couple depends on sex.

  ‘You fuck dozens of women in a lifetime, and they fuck dozens of men. How do you explain that love goes better with some than with others? It isn’t just a matter of psychology. Sex rules. I can see that you’ve never understood that, or you wouldn’t talk the way you do. You intellectualise too much. Let yourself go…’

  Until I met you, I used to find this kind of conversation sterile. And Ernesto a bit of a moron.

  No one at the publishing house knew what was going on between us. He turned up there yesterday, came over and stood behind me. There were a lot of people in the office. I was wearing the latest outfit that my husband had given me. The one with the zip at the back. Leaning over, he slipped his finger down between my pants and my skin. The zip was partly unfastened. He asked me to get up, then he went off to talk with his editor. When he returned he started again, pushing his finger in very deep. This was easier because I was standing up. I was dripping wet.

  What I like best is the middle of the night, two or three o’clock. Did I move or did she suddenly remember I was there? You come close and pull the sheet down over my hips. Your arm slides over my stomach, your hand is still a bit cold. You mustn’t wake me up, I mustn’t turn over. You get closer still, I can feel the soft hair of your mound against my knee, you are so wet and open and I’m still not hard at all. You have to find your way between my legs, you rub yourself, and you gently push yourself into my dreams.

  I am often shattered when I see her. I know that fucking is the only thing on her mind. Sometimes I am afraid I won’t stay the distance. After the first blowjob, I’m confident. We fuck quarter of an hour later. And then again, one more time, before I fall asleep.

  I also fuck my wife, intermittently.

  I decide to spend a few days with my parents. My husband never comes with me. He’s almost as old as my father. They have nothing to say to each other. For some months now, I’ve been thinking more often about my parents. I tell myself that maybe I’ve treated them unfairly. So I go, but as soon as I’m there I think only of getting away again.

  I’ve blossomed. When I was leaving you said: ‘How is it possible? You get more and more beautiful. Do I have this effect on you?’

  I want to tell the world how happy I am to get myself fucked so well, that it’s good for the complexion. I restrain myself a little.

  I receive a great big bunch of roses. My sister doesn’t give a damn, or pretends not to. My story of a married man with children sticks in her throat. She cannot help but project herself into the victim role, that of the woman betrayed and humiliated. She goes on about my husband, asks me if I ever think of how much I am hurting him. I tell her we only have one bloody life and that all I have to do is not tell him. I add that marriage doesn’t vaccinate you against love, and nor does having children. I ask her if she’s ever come more than once in a week. I know I’m being cruel.

  I don’t really believe in the love part of our story. It’s a story and that’s all there is to it. No one can blame me for being alive; I have no wish to hurt anyone. I am being absolutely realistic and I am not asking anything of him that he cannot give me.

  I would like to explain to my sister that none of this is necessarily serious. I would like to warn her of the trouble that she’s storing up for herself, with her head buried in the sand, a sanctimonious little old lady at the age of twenty-five, trotting out the same platitudes that they drummed into us when we were kids. I’ve never summoned up the courage to tell her that her husband played footsie with me last May, at Mum’s place. I’ve never told her that I didn’t resist. It takes a good stiff cock to make me lower my eyes.

  I only did what he wanted.

  I will never accept that there is anything bad in doing something good for yourself. There is only good.

  Last Friday I gave her a vibrator. I’d had it gift-wrapped. I asked her to unwrap it after I left, after we’d had a good fuck. I would like to have seen her face at that moment. I’m sure she smiled. I am thinking of giving her others, increasing the size.

  So many people with their heads in the sand. And such different heads, all ages, every religion, from the brightest to the dullest, all united in proclaiming that fidelity is the guarantee of love. Could I possibly be wrong about this? Could they possibly be lying? Why don’t I blame myself? He tells me I’m perverse. I look at him, bewildered. Perverse? I grab the dictionary. So, it seems that I like to encourage evil. I am corrupt, depraved, debased, degenerate, diabolical. I am neither good nor virtuous. I display a deviation from basic instincts. I am bestial, exhibitionistic, fetishistic. I impulsively perform immoral acts. I am a masochist, a necrophile, a sadist, a voyeur, a zoophile. I seek physical pleasure outside the ‘normal’ sexual act. That is, outside heterosexual coupling between partners of reasonably equal age. I’ll do anything.

  What do I like best about her?

  Her perversity. And her freedom. She is the freest woman I know. I am not telling her that I am starting to need her. I treat her badly.

  My desire to make love with him seems quite natural to me. All the frustration of this secret relationship makes me incredibly greedy. It’s quite impossible for me to fall asleep beside him. My hands just keep on wandering,
and you’d have to tie me up to stop me touching him. I give him precious little rest but I refuse him nothing.

  He says that the most exciting thing about me is the way I naturally accept every possible situation. I must in some way be a normal pervert.

  I have no after-thoughts.

  I’m a simple girl.

  It’s other people who make everything complicated.

  The first time I saw her pushing in a vibrator and murmuring how good it was, I got an uncontrollable erection. Then she told me to masturbate. Which I did. I said to her: ‘Turn round, show me your arse.’ She stuck my big Montblanc pen in it.

  And I masturbated all the harder.

  Afterwards we went off for a pizza. The vibrator was hurting her. She asked me if she could take it out. Of course I said no.

  I wanted him to say no. I came several times in the restaurant, especially when he pushed the vibrator with his foot, under the table. I think the waiter noticed. That turned me on even more. I wanted some device that could make time stand still. Then everyone in the restaurant would become a statue, except for him, and me, and the waiter. We would fuck on the table and the waiter would watch us and masturbate.

  And then everything would go back to normal, but our eyes would be alight with something new and beautiful.

  Something fiery.

  I don’t make too much of an effort with girls. That’s what works, usually. I look at their arses a lot. They can be big, even huge. I am more demanding about arses than breasts.

  I love to imagine a woman from behind, busy with something. I push her down, making her press her cheek against a table so that even when she’s fucked she can see me fucking her. I push up her skirt to uncover her white, slightly flabby arse. I slap it with the palm of my hand, pull the cheeks apart and shove myself into her, using all my fingers to hold her reddening cheeks. I love white skin because you can see it get red. I’m not so fond of arses that are toned and bronzed, arses straight out of the gym, touched up with a fake tan. Arses like that aren’t made for lovemaking, they’re only made for show and for dance music. I worship white arses, those made only to be fucked.

  It’s just a matter of knowing how to talk to you to make you come, so I try harder and harder to entice you.

  I tell you that I desperately need to feel your cock in my mouth.

  It happened suddenly. Something clicked. Till I was thirty I cheated on my wife mainly in my head. I hardly ever thought about death. Let us say I was stuck in a rut, in a conventional world with no surprises, where happiness was hidden, never visible.

  And then one summer night, while my wife was away on holiday, I picked up a hooker in the street. I was drunk. I took her to a hotel. I fucked like I hadn’t fucked for a very long time. I paid her and made an appointment for the next day. This went on for a year.

  I didn’t know her name, she didn’t know mine.

  We must have screwed about thirty times in the year. That wasn’t what I liked best. What I preferred was when she sucked me deep into her throat while rubbing her pussy. Her pussy was very hairy, very dark, very silky and shiny. In a year she must have sucked me off at least fifty times. I paid her thirty thousand francs.

  We probably exchanged no more than a dozen words in all. I never knew why she played with herself. If she did it for me…

  She taught me that there are sex stories and love stories and that it’s a matter of building a great big barrier between them. And not talking about it too much. Which is what I did.

  I can’t stand useless talk. Empty words and hollow phrases make me really angry. Being awkward and hesitant leaves me cold. A man has a much bigger chance of getting what he wants by saying I really turn him on, that I make him so hard he’ll burst out of his pants, than with stale chat-up lines. Shut your mouth and fuck me. Tell me you want to fuck me all night long. No one has ever spoken to me like that. And I’ve never spoken to anyone like that either. I suppose I don’t look like the kind of person you can talk to so directly. With a lot of people they have scarcely opened their mouths and I can see the pathos of the whole situation. How can they be so naturally vapid? All too often I get trapped by my own curiosity. It makes them bold and then I have no end of trouble getting rid of them. I have a whole store of words ready to use. They fill my head and can never come out. You are the first to have understood.

  In the evening we set off by car for Paris. I’m driving, and we’re going very fast. She starts caressing me, to a point where we’re soon in danger of having an accident. I ask her to wait a bit. I ask her to take off her pants and tights. Her skirt is pulled up, the tights pulled down over her red pumps. I push my fingers inside her. My right hand opens her lips to expose her clitoris, my fingers move round it, just skimming over it, then push back inside her. They’re seeking out that warm, sticky fluid deep in her vagina.

  I keep pushing in and out until the desire become unbearable, and her whole body arches up against my hand.

  Her eyes dart back and forth between me and the road. She wants us to swap places. I refuse. I put both hands back on the steering wheel watching her caressing herself. I say to her: ‘Go on, rub yourself hard.’ I overtake trucks.

  I push my thumb deep inside my cunt and force a finger into my anus. He’s overtaking trucks and slowing down so they can enjoy the scene. I smile at such generosity. My index finger finally heeds the desperate call of my little button. My thumb and finger can feel each other through the delicate wall that separates my two organs, and I am going to come very soon and I want him to enjoy it too. The car park is only a few hundred metres away but my orgasm comes first. I don’t give him time to stop, my hands are already tearing at his belt and I throw myself on him. My lips move right down along his length and then gently back up, accompanied by my hand, my tongue spreads that pretty little slit at the tip, I dribble with happiness on to it. That special voice of his gently penetrates me. He’s telling me about someone who’s approaching the car, no doubt the driver of the truck parked beside us. I make a move to raise my head but his hands push down on my neck to stop me and make me carry on with what I’m doing. He asks me to get close up against the window, to raise up my arse, and I shake my head, no, without stopping sucking him, suddenly I’m very scared. He tells me again to get close to the window, describes the guy, someone totally repulsive. I feel cold air. But I push my arse as high as I can. He opens the window wider. I don’t know whether it’s the cold or fear that is making me shudder most. I’m waiting feverishly for hands to be placed on me, for them to spread my cheeks and to be taken violently.

  I am flowing with pleasure.

  His sperm brings me back to reality as it floods my mouth. I roll it beneath my tongue before swallowing and sit up laughing. The car park is empty.

  I have the feeling that I have nothing left but sex and her.

  We drive on in silence. I play a tape of the same song over and over. Shirley Horn, Trav’lin’ Light. I look at him from time to time. He smiles at me and I feel good.

  His desire for me gives me a legitimacy that I’ve never found anywhere else. The feeling of having the right to be there. Were it possible, I would live with his cock permanently inside me.

  I could be a perfect mistress if he wanted to have one.

  She said to me: ‘The two of us are going to have a great time.’ I love that phrase. If we had got there a couple of hours earlier I’d have taken her straight to a club. I make an appointment with her for the following evening.

  I wait for him all evening. He doesn’t turn up, then phones at midnight to apologise. His wife.

  The next day he calls me to fix a meeting in a smart restaurant near the Champs-Elysées. I get there first and insist on waiting on the pavement despite the entreaties of the porter who wants me to come inside. I look out of place with my pink mini-skirt and plaits. I am wearing dark glasses which partly hide my face and a long lambskin coat that I leave open. I imagine the kind of look I’d get from one of my husband’s colleagues if he
recognised me in this outfit.

  Heads bowed together over our plates we tirelessly tell each other all our dirty stories. He’s very polite and looks after me like a little girl. With his bare foot between my thighs he encourages me to eat. I must have taken at least an hour to finish my meal before he suggests we go off for a drink.

  A discreet brass plate on a discreet door in a secluded street. She can guess what’s going to happen. I’ve told her it will be hot. She squeezes my hand, asking me if I’m not worried that people will recognise us. To tell the truth it’s never crossed my mind. In this place everyone is in the same boat. To reassure her I whisper that the hardest part is letting yourself go.

  ‘And after that, it’s just like riding a bike, you’ll see…’

  The door is opened, cautiously, a couple of inches. A quick check confirms that we meet the criteria of the establishment. All these places have the same rules: women are strictly forbidden from wearing trousers; rollnecks and other garments that cover up too much are strongly discouraged; single men are only allowed in at certain times or on certain evenings. Visits by single women are extremely welcome but highly unlikely.

  We go and sit at the bar. The ceiling is too low, the light pallid; worn-out red velvet and Seventies music. Close-ups of fucking on the video screens. And photos of women with big tits, sleazy, old-fashioned pin-ups, except that here they’re framed. I go off to have a look round. I can see her perched anxiously on her bar stool, trying to look calm and confident. Her eyes travel round the room and meet those of a few predators ready to pounce on the first prey they can find. I decide to let myself be distracted by the behaviour of the two waitresses, both completely shaved, wearing only strings and sparkling tassels. I return when she ought to be starting to curse me for leaving her all on her own. I take her into a darker part of the room.