Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [113]
Although Linda had not relished the adventure of the handkerchief, after a few months of not moving from her own sphere she became restless again.
She was haunted by memories, by stories she heard, by the feeling that everywhere around her men and women were enjoying sensual pleasure. She feared that now that she had ceased to enjoy her husband, her body was dying.
She remembered being sexually awakened by an accident at a very early age. Her mother had bought her panties that were too small for her and very tight between the legs. They had irritated her skin, and at night while falling asleep she had scratched herself. As she fell asleep, the scratching became softer and then she became aware that it was a pleasurable sensation. She continued to caress her skin and found that as her fingers came nearer the little place in the center, the pleasure increased. Under her fingers she felt a part which seemed to harden at her touch, and there found an even greater sensibility.
A few days later she was sent to confession. The priest sat at his chair and she was made to kneel at his feet. He was a Dominican and wore a long cord with a tassel which fell at his right side. As Linda leaned against his knees, she felt this tassel against her. The priest had a big warm voice which enveloped her, and he leaned down to talk to her. When she had finished with the ordinary sins – anger, lies and so on – she paused. Observing her hesitation, he began to whisper in a much lower tone, ‘Do you ever have impure dreams?’
‘What dreams, Father?’ she asked.
The hard tassel that she felt just at the sensitive place between her legs affected her like her fingers’ caresses of the nights before. She tried to move closer to it. She wanted to hear the voice of the priest, warm and suggestive, asking about the impure dreams. He said, ‘Do you ever have dreams of being kissed, or of kissing someone?’
‘No, Father.’
Now she felt that the tassel was infinitely more affecting than her fingers because, in some mysterious way or other, it was part of the priest’s warm voice and his words, like ‘kisses’. She pressed against him harder and looked at him.
He felt that she had something to confess, and asked, ‘Do you ever caress yourself?’
‘Caress myself how?’
The priest was about to dismiss the question, thinking his intuition had been an error, but the expression of her face confirmed his doubts.
‘Do you ever touch yourself with your hands?’
It was at this moment that Linda wanted so much to be able to make one movement of friction and once again reach that extreme, overwhelming pleasure she had discovered a few nights ago. But she was afraid the priest would become aware and repulse her and she would lose the sensation completely. She was determined to hold his attention, and began, ‘Father, it is true, I have something very terrible to confess. I scratched myself one night and then I caressed myself, and –’
‘My child, my child,’ said the priest, ‘you must stop this immediately. It is impure. It will ruin your life.’
‘Why is it impure?’ asked Linda, pressing against the tassel. Her excitement was rising. The priest leaned over so close that his lips almost touched her forehead. She was dizzy. He said, ‘Those are the caresses that only your husband can give you. If you do it and abuse them, you will grow weak, and no one will love you. How often have you done it?’
‘For three nights, Father. I have had dreams too.’
‘What sort of dreams?’
‘I have had dreams of someone touching me there.’
Every word she said increased her excitement, and with a pretense of guilt and shame she threw herself against the priest’s knees and bowed her head as if she would cry, but it was