Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [52]
Today he waited for her. She moved to meet his thrusts, arching her back, but she did not come. He begged her, ‘Come, my darling. Come, my darling. I can’t wait any longer. Come, my darling.’
He emptied himself in her and fell on her breast without a sound. He lay there as if she had struck him. Nothing wounded him more than her unresponsiveness.
‘You’re cruel,’ he said. ‘Why are you holding back from me now?’
She was silent. She herself was sad that anxiety and doubt could so easily close her being to a possession she wanted. Even if it were to be the last, she wanted it. But because she feared it might be the last, her being closed, and she was deprived of real union with him. And without the orgasm experienced together, there was no union, no absolute communion between the two bodies. Afterwards, she knew, she would be tortured as she had been other times. She would be left unsatisfied, with the imprint of his body on hers.
She would re-enact the scene in her mind, see him bending over her, see how their legs appeared when they were tangled together, see how over and over again his penis penetrated her, how he fell away when it was over, and she would experience the stirring hunger again, and be tormented with desire to feel him deep inside of her body. She knew the tension of unsatisfied desire, the nerves unbearably awake, keen, naked, the blood in turmoil, everything set for a climax that did not take place. Afterwards she could not sleep. She felt cramps along her legs, making her shake like a restless racehorse. Obsessional erotic images pursued her all through the night.
‘What are you thinking of?’ said Pierre, watching her face.
‘Of how sad I will be when I leave you, after not being really yours.’
‘There is something else on your mind, Elena, something that was there when you came, something I want to know.’
‘I’m concerned about your depression and have asked myself if you missed your activity and were wishing to return to it.’
‘Oh, that was it. That was it. You were preparing for my leaving again. But that was not in my mind. On the contrary. I have seen friends who will help me prove that I was not active, that I was only a café revolutionist. Do you remember the character in Gogol? The man who talked day and night but never moved, acted? That is me. That is all I have done – talk. If this can be proved, then I can stay and be free. That is what I am struggling for.’
What an effect these words had on Elena! – as great as her fears had had on her sensual being, arresting her impulses, dominating them. It frightened her. She now wanted to lie on Pierre and have him take her. She knew that his words were sufficient to release her. He may have divined this, for he continued his caresses for a long time, waiting for the touch of his fingers on her moist skin to arouse his desire again. And much later, as they lay in the dark, he took her again, and then she had to hold back the intensity and quickness of her orgasm so as to have it with him, and they both cried out, and she wept with joy.
From then on the struggle of their love was to defeat this coldness which lay dormant in her and which a word, a small wound, a doubt, could bring out to destroy their possession of each other. Pierre became obsessed with it. He was more intent on watching her moods and predispositions than his own. Even as he enjoyed her, his eyes searched her for a sign of that future clouding, always hanging over them. He exhausted himself waiting for her pleasure. He withheld his. He stormed against this unconquerable core of her being, which could close at will against him. He began to understand some of men’s perverse devotions to frigid women.
The citadel – the impregnable virgin woman: The conqueror in Pierre, who had never burst