Happiness

by Denis Robert

  We make a place for ourselves in the circle that has formed around two girls. They are lying on the floor, one on top of the other, caressing each other to the sound of the Stones’ Angie. A few guys are watching them, turned on, but mainly annoyed at not being able to join in. The boss of the club comes up and starts ranting about this slut who keeps taking his girls. The slut in question has stuck her head under the skirt of the other one and keeps brushing away the male hands that touch her.

  I would rather like it if she did that to me. He has other plans for me, takes me into an adjoining room and makes me stand in front of a more inclusive couple. The woman keeps shouting ‘Oh yeah, yeah, that’s so good, go on, give it to me’ as she writhes about under some bloke. I find the scene rather comic, but I’m not there to laugh.

  It’s a big room, with wide couches along three of the walls. A dim red light casts strange shadows on the bodies. He takes me into a corner and starts undressing me. My pants are soaked. A few people have followed us but still keep a respectful distance. I’m quickly naked and kneeling in front of him, rubbing myself while busy with him. It’s really great to be watched. This is the first time. I turn my back to them but I can hear their breathing. That unmistakeable faint, squishy sound of masturbation tells me what they’re doing. Soon they are touching me. How many different hands are exploring me? No way of telling, the body doesn’t provide such information. It will only transmit messages of pleasure or pain, without one being able to really tell which is pain, and which is pleasure.

  I watch her performing. I ask her to wank the other guy. She does as she’s told. I didn’t think she’d agree so quickly, I was expecting a bit of resistance.

  My hand is suddenly lifted off his body and on to an unknown cock. I resist this surprise attack, rapidly withdrawing to familiar territory, the stranger’s hand still grasping my wrist. That voice of his that’s become so familiar to my ears and my orgasms asks me to masturbate the stranger. I am not a disobedient girl, I abandon all resistance, and even find some pleasure in making an organ come that is detached from any real person. It’s a rather thick cock. I wank it off as best I can. I no longer know what’s going to happen to me. I trust him. Completely.

  His arms find me and lift me up to a better position. I have the impression of resurfacing after holding my breath under water for a long time. I’m a bit drunk and can’t make out what’s going on around me. I allow myself to be touched and stroked all over, and confidently meet all the eyes staring at me when he turns me round to face them. My eyes are open but I cannot distinguish the shapes. I feel strong and beautiful. Hands penetrate me all over. My head falls back and nestles against his shoulder, into the safety of his reassuring smell.

  I am entering a new dimension that’s hard to describe: a complete absence of any thoughts. The feeling that my mind is ruled by my body and all its sensations. Freedom I have never known, pride I cannot explain.

  I pull her away from them just as they were definitely about to fuck her. One unhappy guy suggests that maybe she might have something to say about this. He looks at her waiting for an answer. I give him a scornful smile.

  Me? Make a decision? He really hasn’t grasped what’s going on. Right now I wouldn’t be able to decide how many lumps of sugar to put in my coffee. My pleasure is bound to my submission. The very fact he’s speaking to me seems completely out of order.

  Now I really want to fuck her.

  I let myself be taken to one of the couches and we make love ignoring the place and its inhabitants. I am very grateful to him for telling me that he loves me at that moment.

  I tell her that I love her. It isn’t a future commitment, it’s an unexpected declaration. It came out without any effort. Almost naturally. Normally I never say that. I wanted to thank her for being how she is. Afterwards, I recall that I regretted having said it to you.

  That unexpected declaration frightened you. You told me you never said that. Even to your wife.

  You were afraid that I’d seize on this ‘I love you’ like a victory, that I’d turn it against you.

  You were afraid and you made me pay for it.

  That was the point at which I asked myself why I was so unworthy of being loved by you.

  She kisses me, opening her mouth wide. She’s usually lazy with her tongue but this time she keeps it in my mouth for a long time. I let this pass and wait to see what will follow.

  Next day on the phone she asks me to describe what had happened. She wants to know what I thought of her. She plays at not remembering any more. She just recalls the stairs and her fear.

  ‘After that, it’s a blur. How was I? Tell me.’

  ‘You were very good… exactly as one should be. You were available, open to just about everything. I think that I could have done whatever I wanted with you.’

  This trust scared me.

  I’m happy with my body, though I wouldn’t mind having slightly bigger breasts. My body will age. I am content to live as I do now. I won’t be able to do this when I’m older. I do not know what love is. The versions of it that I get to see every day don’t convince me. All that selfish, comforting dependency.

  When I’m older I’ll have these memories. I’ll get fucked while recalling these moments. I only have to think back to the scene in the club to get wet.

  When I am older I know you will not be there.

  Sex is a drug. I switch between periods of indulgence and abstinence. There are days when I think about it so much that I can’t concentrate on work or anything else. I want to write a porn novel.

  A writer has complete impunity. People who have a writer in their midst must be aware that anything they say or do can be used by him. They know it.

  You can do whatever you like with me. You won’t manage to make me dislike you, however hard you try.

  I’m caught in a trap. At first I thought I could use you in order to write.

  I felt that our adventure could make a fine story, but I lack all perspective.

  I keep urging her to record everything in her notebook.

  I meet him at his home the following evening. His family have gone away for the weekend and he’s decided to join them later. So he can spend an evening with me.

  He’s tired but pleased to see me. I’ve been feeling great and overexcited ever since he called me in the middle of the afternoon. When he opens the door he holds out tickets to a concert: I wrack my brains to try and remember who the singer is. No, her name doesn’t ring any bell. He sighs, saying we’re from different generations. The pleasure he takes in stressing our age difference makes me laugh. Our ten-year gap means little to me. He would love me to be even younger.

  We are very late and I scarcely have time to say hello before we’re off on his scooter. It’s a very mild evening, the breeze blows up my skirt and reveals my pants to the delight of passing motorists. I cling on to him like a real girlfriend.

  She’d never heard of Marianne Faithfull.

  While we’re riding along she’s stroking me. I try not to ejaculate. The stain would be too obvious on my linen trousers. I try. And then I stop trying.

  I adore it when someone makes love to me while I’m busy with something else. I try to hold my concentration for as long as possible: that really turns me on. The concert hall is packed solid, no chance of the tiniest little caress in this sardine tin. I annoy everyone trying to get to the front to see the singer. I try to get interested in what’s happening on the stage, I try to listen to the music but my brain simply refuses to focus on anything but him for more than a couple of minutes. He’s too far away from me and so I end up going back to him. I kiss and hug him a bit, draw him out of the light. There’s not enough space. People cough. He asks me if I’m enjoying it. I say ‘Yes, yes’ without much enthusiasm. My to-ing and fro-ing starts to get on people’s nerves. We decide to leave, to general approval. I rub his cock on the exit stairs. I feel it swelling beneath my fingers through the thin fabric. He rubs himself against my arse in the gloo
m.

  On the way out a friend notices the stain on my trousers. I am a bit embarrassed. He smiles. I can see that he finds her beautiful.

  Now that Saturday night outs have become rather low-life, Fridays are the hottest nights of the week. Swinger clubs follow the same principle. After midnight, everyone wants a bit of human warmth. And more than that, if they find the right person. I’m starting to like this new place where he’s taken me – it’s a younger crowd and the women are better looking.

  The basement is like a labyrinth. It’s oppressively hot and sticky. Narrow corridors connect rooms of different sizes, their stone walls making me think of some medieval castle or dungeon. A woman with Afro braids, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses and her arse squeezed into a Jean-Paul Gaultier leather skirt, sits astride a guy with his trousers down. Her skirt is unbuttoned to the top of her thighs, but none of the little straps on her red bustier is unfastened. I can’t see the man’s face yet. But she is dazzling. She keeps her back straight, leans her head slightly forwards, her braids alternately covering and revealing her face. I come closer. Completely absorbed in the rhythmic movements of her pelvis, she seems hardly to notice us as we settle down at a distance which leaves little doubt as to our intentions. Her friend welcomes us with a smile.

  Copying perfectly, she half-undresses, removes her skirt and pants, opens her waistcoat but keeps her bra on which increases the size of her breasts. They overflow a little from the bra and to excite her I pinch the exposed flesh. She climbs on to me. I penetrate her straight away, very hard and very deep.

  I really want him to fuck me in the arse.

  I am afraid of ejaculating too quickly. While she’s monopolising my cock I snort some poppers. The fumes help you to stay focussed, and to feel your skin like a second coating of rubber. To take that tiny distance that allows me to stay aware of the pleasure that it will be to come inside her. To postpone and extend the moment when, inevitably, I am going to explode.

  I rest the spread cheeks of my arse on his cock and push myself down on to it very gently. He keeps absolutely still, letting me gauge precisely my pleasure and pain. I stop breathing. His advance into this tight little corridor isn’t achieved without difficulty and I let him go in and out ensuring that each time he gets a little further. When at last no more resistance prevents his advance, he decided to come alive again. He takes my hand and puts it on my arse. He shows me how much I’ve opened up for him. I would have found it hard to imagine that. My anus is a big open flower, as sweet as whipped cream. I get him to come back inside, I want him to go really deep. The feeling of emptiness that I discover in my stomach drives me crazy. My neighbour leans over to remind me of his existence. His fingers explore the abandoned place.

  I turn round to them and it’s like looking at myself in a mirror. The girl has removed her bustier. My hand reaches out to her to check the accuracy of the picture. The reality fills me with delight; perfectly synchronised sodomy.

  I say to her:

  ‘You were made for sex, you should do nothing else.’

  She replies:

  ‘Don’t forget to make love to me tomorrow before leaving.’

  She said that to me just before falling asleep. Her tired eyes, her body crying out for rest. How could I forget?

  Why does she seem so amorous?

  Earlier on at the bar she kissed me and held me in her arms under the bewildered eyes of the guy who had just been fucking her. I don’t think she recognised him.

  With her I’d dare anything.

  She’s my best friend. She’s just told me the latest story about her boyfriend. He wanted to organise some swopping with friends and only needed her OK to fix a date. Her reaction makes it clear that it isn’t something she’d consider in her wildest fantasies. I ask her why it’s so horrible to sleep with people you don’t know. She looks at me in disgust, then in amusement. She’s sure I’m joking, just to wind her up. It calms me down a bit to see her just when I was starting to think that the whole world only dreams of one vast huge orgy. I wonder whether her boyfriend’s proposal was meant seriously. I dare not imagine the start of an argument about the question. An argument about what, in fact?

  I feel I’m different.

  I don’t experience the slightest shame at going to swinger clubs, merely an ever wider detachment from the mass of conventional couples. I’m not trying to scandalise anyone. I’m just asking myself a few questions about sexual fantasies and practices. I do not accept rules, I have no absolute principles, and I’m not going to let anyone impose a morality on me which isn’t mine. The prohibition of sodomy in certain US states makes me laugh out loud. For a democratic state to try and legislate on the sexual proclivities of free adults – that’s something truly surreal.

  For the first time since we got to know each other, we’re a bit bored. The clubs are always the same, after a few evenings you feel you know it all, you know in advance what’s going to happen. I wonder what new thing I can invent to please her. I suggest she offers me one of her friends. Or two. She refuses, shocked.

  When you arrive soon I will be on the balcony watching the passers-by in the street. The door will be ajar; you will come in without making a sound. You will press against me from behind without anyone being able to see you, and you will lift my skirt. You’ll hold your penis against me and you’ll stroke me through my pants. I’ll arch my back, you will push hard against me. You’ll rub yourself against the fabric until you can feel that I’m good and ready. Then I’ll call down to someone in the street. At that precise moment you will push aside my pants to penetrate me. I’ll choose someone walking his dog and I’ll tell him about how much all the dog shit on the pavements is costing the community. I’ll keep talking until my voice cracks with pleasure. I’ll try to keep going as long as possible. It’s got to be violent and intense. One day I realised how much power I had over you.

  She talks to me about Clinton, and Monica’s lips. The discussion wanders off into how we are conditioned, and the way sex is portrayed in American films.

  You can dedicate your whole life to sex, dream of nothing else, even keep a permanent erection. Become a preacher, a procurer, a pornographer. She says she’d like to be a little mouse so she could creep into the bedroom of Kenneth Starr.

  She prefers the Russians. Definitely.

  My husband is away in the USA. I’m spending two long weeks out of town. Back at my parents. You are on holiday with your wife and children. You told me before leaving that I must have a good time and not think too much about you.

  I try to follow your advice, without much enthusiasm. I sleep with one of your t-shirts which loses your smell as the nights pass. I catch up with old friends, take stock. Twenty-nine, a husband who is more and more like a ghost, an occasional lover (you) who phones me regularly, talks very quietly and tells me he has to hang up now.

  Twenty-nine years old and how many lovers so far? I no longer know how to count, I don’t know who I should count. Does a blowjob count? A blowjob doesn’t mean anything, say the Americans.

  Twenty-nine and how many blowjobs?

  I go out every evening. My father doesn’t understand. He disapproves. The same hard look, the same little command: ‘Don’t come back too late.’ It’s nearly ten years since I left the family home. Nearly thirty years of my father’s disapproval. And my mother who keeps her mouth shut, as she always has. One day I am going to tell them about everything they’ve screwed up. Starting with me.

  A philosophy lecturer is flirting with me. He’s sweet. He invites me to a restaurant, chats me up. I surprise myself by asking him if he wants to fuck me. I would never have been so blunt in the past. He’s a bit put out by this. I hardly have the time to start fondling him before he comes in my hand. He apologises, says it’s never happened to him before. When at last he fucks me I excite myself even more by thinking of you.

  I take advantage of the holiday to fix the roof, which has started to leak. I rediscover the joys of do-it-yourself. A
n empty mind. I’ve brought along some books of Indian philosophy. I fall asleep after reading a few lines. The sea is blue. The house is white. The TV is on all the time. My daughters make necklaces from shells. The taller one has a boyfriend who wears torn jeans and has an earring. My wife is absent and my daughters are too grown-up. In the evenings I wander around with the dog. I watch the waves rise and fall. And then rise. And then fall.

  I get my feet wet. I don’t go swimming. I go to the beach. I bring them chilled water and cakes and then I go back to the house. I listen to the Tour de France on the radio. In the evenings I open a bottle of white which I always finish. I still don’t like whelks. I think of you when I’m fucking. I see you sweating on your vibrator. My wife is very pleased with what I’m doing, ‘The holiday is doing you good’, she says. I give her a smile and kiss her shoulder.

  I return before he does. I’m sulking because I can’t speak to him. My husband is very attentive. He shows me an article he’s published in an American scientific review. He’s evidently very proud of it. We go to a fancy restaurant. That same evening my husband fucks me for the first time in two months. I don’t feel anything in particular.

  I’ve been waiting for your phone call for several days. Your voice is warm. I want you. I ask if you’ve missed me. You avoid answering. You quickly draw me into my tales of sex. I tell you how the other evening I went to the birthday party of one of my girlfriends. I knew hardly anyone. I didn’t feel like chatting. I felt like getting drunk. It was a jolly party – champagne, petits fours, old disco tunes. Almost all the girls were blondes, heads high, looking proud. I wonder what they do to be so sure of themselves. Someone put on some Cuban music. I found myself in the arms of a guy who pulled me into a backbeat dance where the movements were explicitly sexual. After a moment I asked him why he was going so fast. He looked at me in astonishment then asked me to follow him. He led me into the car park opposite the flat and fucked me on the bonnet of a car. The car was very dirty and I could feel the heat from the engine warming my arse. A lot of people passed by. We had to finish off a bit further away against a wall. I kept my eyes closed throughout, I didn’t want to see him, I thought of you, and I had a very long orgasm. Then I went home to bed. He returned to the party; I think his girlfriend was there.