Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [102]
When they returned he looked at their faces and was amazed at how different people could look in daily life from the way they looked while they made love. The changes were obscene. Martha’s face now seemed closed, whereas before it was crying out her enjoyment, through her eyes, hair, mouth, tongue. And Pierre, the serious Pierre, a short time ago was not a father but a rather youthful body stretched on a bed, abandoned to the furious lust of an unleashed woman.
John felt he could no longer stay at home without betraying his discovery to his sick mother, to everyone. When he declared his intention of leaving to join the army, Martha gave him a quick stabbing glance of surprise. Until now she thought John was merely puritanical. But she also believed that he loved her and that sooner or later he would succumb to her. She wanted them both. Pierre was a lover such as women dream of. John, she could have educated, even against his nature. And now he was going. Something remained unfinished between them, as if the warmth created during their games together had been interrupted and had been intended to continue into their adult lives.
That night she tried to reach through to him again. She went to his room. He received her with such revulsion that she demanded an explanation, drove him to confess, and then he blurted out the scene he had witnessed. He could not believe that she loved Pierre. He believed it was the animal in her. And when she saw his reaction, she sensed she would never be able to possess him now.
She stopped herself at the door and said to him, ‘John, you are convinced that I am animal. Well, I can easily prove to you that I am not. I have told you that I love you. I will prove it to you. I will not only break with Pierre, but I will come every night to you and stay with you and we will sleep like children, together, and I will prove to you how chaste I can be, how free of desire.’
John’s eyes opened wide. He was deeply tempted. The thought of Martha and his father making love was intolerable to him. He explained it on moral grounds. He did not recognize that he was jealous. He did not see how much he would have liked to be in Pierre’s place, with all of Pierre’s experience of women. He did not ask himself why he repudiated Martha’s love. But why was he so removed from the natural hungers of other men and women?
He assented to Martha’s offer. With cunning, Martha did not break with Pierre in such a way as to alarm him, but merely told him she thought John was suspicious and she wanted to calm all his doubts before he left for the army.
As John waited for Martha’s visit the next night, he tried to remember all he could of his sexual feelings. His first impressions were linked with Martha – he and Martha in the orphan age, protecting each other, inseparable. His love for her then was ardent and spontaneous. He delighted in touching her. Then one day when Martha was eleven, a woman came to see her. John caught a glimpse of her waiting in the parlor. He had never seen anyone like her. She wore tight clothes that outlined her full, voluptuous figure. Her hair was red-gold, waved, her lips so thickly painted that they fascinated the boy. He stared at her. Then he saw her receiving Martha and embracing her. It was then he was told this was Martha’s mother, who had abandoned her as a child, and then later acknowledged her but was not able to keep her because she was the favorite prostitute of the town.
After that, if Martha’s face glowed with excitement or became flushed, if her hair shone, if she wore a tight dress, if she made the slightest coquettish gesture, then John would feel a great disturbance, anger. It seemed to him that he could see her mother in her, that her body was provocative, that she was lustful. He would question her. He wanted to know what she thought, what she dreamed, her most secret desires. She answered him naïvely. What she liked best in the world was John. What gave her the greatest pleasure was to be touched by him.
‘What do you feel then?’ asked John.
‘Contentment, a pleasure I cannot