Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [71]
‘Yes, of course. Think how distressing it would be to discover nothing there, and also to find too much of the mammary protrusions further up – breasts for milk, a thing to paralyze one’s sexual appetite.’
‘Some women have very small milk holders,’ said Elena.
It was her turn to stand on the ladder to reach a cornice and the slanting corner of the roof. Raising her arm she brought her skirts up with her. She wore no stockings. Her legs were smooth and slender, without ‘globular exaggerations’, as Miguel said, paying her compliments now that their relationship was secure from any sexual hopes on her side.
Elena’s desire to seduce a homosexual was a common error among women. Usually there was a point of female honor in this, a desire to test one’s power against heavy odds, a feeling, perhaps, that all men were escaping from their rule and that they must be seduced again. Miguel suffered from these attempts every day. He was not effeminate. He held himself well, his gestures were manly. As soon as a woman began to display coquetry toward him, he was in a panic. He immediately foresaw the entire drama: the aggression of the woman, her interpretation of his passivity as mere timidity, her advances, his hatred of the moment when he would have to reject her. He could never do this with calm indifference. He was too tender and compassionate. He suffered at times more than the woman, whose vanity was all that mattered. He had such a familial relationship with women that he always felt as if he were wounding a mother, a sister, or Elena again, in her new transformations.
By now he knew what harm he had done to Elena in being the first one to instill in her a doubt of her ability to love or to be loved. Each time he brushed off an advance from a woman, he thought he was committing a minor crime, murdering a faith and confidence for good.
How nice it was to be with Elena, enjoying her feminine endowments without danger. Pierre was taking care of the sensual Elena. At the same time, how jealous Miguel was of Pierre just as he had been of his father when he was a child. His mother always sent him out of the room as soon as his father entered. The father was impatient for him to leave. He hated the way they locked themselves together for hours. As soon as his father left, his mother’s love, embraces, kisses, returned to him.
When Elena said, ‘I am going to see Pierre,’ it was the same. Nothing could hold her back. No matter how much pleasure they had together, no matter how much tenderness she showered on Miguel, when it was time to be with Pierre, nothing could hold her back.
The mystery of Elena’s masculinity charmed him, too. Whenever he was with her, he felt this vital, active, positive action of her nature. In her presence, he was galvanized from his laziness, his vagueness, his procrastinations. She was the catalyst.
He looked at her legs. Diana’s legs, Diana the huntress, the boy-woman. Legs for running and leaping. He was taken with an overpowering curiosity to see the rest of her body. He moved nearer to the ladder. The stylized legs disappeared into the lace-edged panties. He wanted to see further.
She looked down at him and saw him standing and looking at her with dilated eyes.
‘Elena, I would just like to see how you are made.’
She smiled at him.
‘Will you let me look at you?’
‘You are looking at me.’
He lifted the edge of her skirt outward and it opened like a summer umbrella over him, concealing his head from her. She began to step down the ladder but his hands stopped her. His hands had gripped the elastic belt of the panties and stretched them to slip them down. She remained midway on the ladder, one leg higher than the other, which prevented him from slipping the panties all the way down. He pulled the leg down toward him, so that he could slip off the panties altogether. His hands cupped her ass lovingly. Like a sculptor, he ascertained