Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [21]
‘“Mafouka,” I said, “what are you? Are you a man or a woman? Why do you live with these two girls? If you are a man, why don’t you have a girl of your own? If you are a woman, why don’t you have a man occasionally?”
‘Mafouka smiled at me.
‘“Everybody wants to know. Everybody feels that I am not a boy. The women feel it. The men don’t know for sure. I am an artist.”
‘“What do you mean, Mafouka?”
‘“I mean that I am, like many artists, bisexual.”
‘“Yes, but the bisexuality of artists is in their nature. They may be a man with the nature of a woman, but with such an equivocal physique as you have.”
‘“I have an hermaphrodite’s body.”
‘“Oh, Mafouka, let me see your body.”
‘“You won’t make love to me?”
‘“I promise.”
‘She took her shirt off first and showed a young boy’s torso. She had no breasts, just the nipples, marked as they would be on a young boy. Then she slipped down her slacks. She was wearing a woman’s panties, flesh-colored, with lace. She had a woman’s legs and thighs. They were beautifully curved, full. She was wearing women’s stockings and garters. I said, “Let me take the garters off. I love garters.” She handed me her leg very elegantly with the movement of a ballet dancer. I slowly rolled down the garter. I held a dainty foot in my hand. I looked up at her legs, which were perfect. I rolled down the stocking and saw beautiful, smooth, woman’s skin. Her feet were dainty and carefully pedicured. Her nails were covered with red lacquer. I was more and more intrigued. I caressed her leg. She said, “You promised you would not make love to me.”
‘I stood up. Then she slipped down her panties. And I saw below the delicate curled pubic hair, shaped like a woman’s, that she carried a small atrophied penis, like a child’s. She let me look at her – or at him, as I felt I now should say.
‘“Why do you call yourself by a woman’s name, Mafouka? You are really like a young boy except for the shape of your legs and arms.”
‘Then Mafouka laughed, this time a woman’s laugh, very light and pleasant. She said, “Come and see.” She lay back on the couch, opened her legs and showed me a perfect vulva mouth, rosy and tender, behind the penis.
‘“Mafouka!”
‘My desire was aroused. The strangest desire. The feeling of wanting to take both a man and woman in one person. She saw the stirring of it in me and sat up. I tried to win her by a caress, but she eluded me.
‘“Don’t you like men?” I asked her. “Haven’t you ever had a man?”
‘“I’m a virgin. I don’t like men. I feel a desire for women only, but I can’t take them as a man could. My penis is like a child’s – I cannot have an erection.”
‘“You are a real hermaphrodite, Mafouka,” I said. “That is what our age is supposed to have produced because the tension between the masculine and the feminine has broken down. People are mostly half of one and half of the other. But I have never seen it before – actually, physically. It must make you very unhappy. Are you happy with women?”
‘“I desire women, but I do suffer, because I cannot take them like a man, and also because when they have taken me like Lesbians, I still feel some dissatisfaction. But I am not attracted to men. I fell in love with Matilda, the model. But I could not keep her. She found a real Lesbian for herself, one that she feels she can satisfy. This penis of mine gives her the feeling that I am not a real Lesbian. And she knows she has no power over me, even though I was attracted to her. So you see, the two girls have formed another link together. I stand between them, perpetually dissatisfied. Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang