Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [35]
She licked it gently, with the delicacy of a cat, then she inserted a small portion of it in her mouth and closed her lips around it. It was quivering.
She restrained herself from doing more, for fear of encountering resistance. And when she stopped, he did not encourage her to continue. He seemed content. Marianne felt that that was all she should ask of him. She sprang to her feet and returned to her work. Inwardly she was in a turmoil. Violent images passed before her eyes. She was remembering penny movies she had seen once in Paris, of figures rolling on the grass, hands fumbling, white pants being opened by eager hands, caresses, caresses, and pleasure making the bodies curl and undulate, pleasure running over their skins like water, causing them to undulate as the wave of pleasure caught their bellies or hips, or as it ran up their spines or down their legs.
But she controlled herself with the intuitive knowledge a woman has about the tastes of the man she desires. He remained entranced, his sex erect, his body at times shivering slightly, as if pleasure coursed through it at the memory of her mouth parting to touch the smooth penis.
The day after this episode Marianne repeated her worshipful pose, her ecstasy at the beauty of his sex. Again she kneeled and prayed to this strange phallus which demanded only admiration. Again she licked it so neatly and vibrantly, sending shivers of pleasure up from the sex into his body, again she kissed it, enclosing it in her lips like some marvelous fruit, and again he trembled. Then, to her amazement, a tiny drop of a milky-white, salty substance dissolved in her mouth, the precursor of desire, and she increased her pressure and the movements of her tongue.
When she saw that he was dissolved with pleasure, she stopped, divining that perhaps if she deprived him now he might make a gesture towards fulfillment. At first he made no motion. His sex was quivering, and he was tormented with desire, then suddenly she was amazed to see his hand moving towards his sex as if he were going to satisfy himself.
Marianne grew desperate. She pushed his hand away, took his sex into her mouth again, and with her two hands she encircled his sexual parts, caressed him and absorbed him until he came.
He leaned over with gratitude, tenderness, and murmured, ‘You are the first woman, the first woman, the first woman …’
Fred moved into the studio. But, as Marianne explained, he did not progress from the acceptance of her caresses. They lay in bed, naked, and Fred acted as if she had no sex at all. He received her tributes, frenziedly, but Marianne was left with her desire unanswered. All he would do was to place his hands between her legs. While she caressed him with her mouth his hands opened her sex like some flower and he sought for the pistil. When he felt its contractions, he willingly caressed the palpitating opening. Marianne was able to respond, but somehow this did not satisfy her hunger for his body, for his sex, and she yearned to be possessed by him more completely, to be penetrated.
It occurred to her to show him the manuscripts that she was typing. She thought this might incite him. They lay on the bed and read them together. He read the words aloud, with pleasure. He lingered over the descriptions. He read and reread, and again he took his clothes off and showed himself, but no matter what height his excitement reached he would do no more than this.
Marianne wanted him to be psychoanalyzed. She told him how much her own analysis had liberated her. He listened with interest but resisted the idea. She urged him to write, too, to write out his experiences.
At first he was shy about this, ashamed. Then, almost surreptitiously, he began to write, hiding the pages from her when she came into the room, using a worn pencil, writing as though it were a criminal confession. It was by accident that she read what he had written. He was urgently in need of money. He had pawned his typewriter, his winter coat and his watch,