Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [72]
She abandoned herself to his whim, thinking it was to be an orgy of the eyes and hands only. When she reached the bottom rung, he had one hand on each round promontory and was kneading them as if they were breasts, bringing the caress back to where it had begun, hypnotically.
Now Elena faced him, leaning against the ladder. She sensed that he was trying to take her. At first he touched where the opening was too small for him and where it hurt her. She cried out. Then he moved forward and found the real female opening, found he could slip in this way, and she was amazed to find him so strong, remaining inside of her and moving about. But although he moved vigorously, he did not accelerate his movements to reach a climax. Was he becoming more and more aware that he was inside of a woman and not a boy? Slowly he withdrew, left her thus half-taken, hid his face away from her so that she would not see his disillusion.
She kissed him, to prove to him that this did not cloud their relationship, that she understood.
Sometimes in the street or in a café, Elena was hypnotized by the souteneur face of a man, by a big workman with knee-deep boots, by a brutal, criminal head. She felt a sensual tremor of fear, an obscure attraction. The female in her was fascinated. For a second she felt as if she were a whore who expected a stab in the back for some infidelity. She felt anxiety. She was trapped. She forgot that she was free. A dark fungus layer was awakened, a subterranean primitivism, a desire to feel the brutality of man, the force which could break her open and sack her. To be violated was a need of woman, a secret, erotic desire. She had to shake herself from the domination of these images.
She remembered that what she had first loved in Pierre was the dangerous light in his eyes, the eyes of a man who was without guilt and scruples, who took what he wanted, enjoyed, who was unconscious of risks and consequences.
What had become of this unruly, self-willed savage she had met on that mountain road one dazzling morning? He was now domesticated. He lived for lovemaking. Elena smiled at this. That was a quality one rarely found in a man. But he was still a man of nature. At times she said to him, ‘Where is your horse? You always look as if you had left your horse at the door and were soon to start on a gallop again.’
He slept naked. He hated pyjamas, kimonos, bedroom slippers. He threw his cigarettes on the floor. He washed in ice-cold water like a pioneer. He laughed at comfort. He chose the hardest chair. Once, his body was so hot and dusty and the water he used so ice-cold, that evaporation took place and smoke issued from his pores. He held his steaming hands toward her, and she said, ‘You are the god of fire.’
He could not submit to time. He did not know how much could or could not be done in an hour. Half of his being was forever asleep, coiled in the maternal love she gave him, coiled in reverie, in laziness, talking about the voyages he was going to make, the books he was going to write.
He was pure, too, at strange moments. He had the reserve of the cat. Although he slept naked, he would not walk about naked.
Pierre touched all the regions of understanding with intuition. But he did not live there, he did not sleep and eat in those superior regions as she did. Often he quarreled, warred, drank, with a company of ordinary friends, spent evenings with ignorant people. She could not do this. She liked the exceptional, the extraordinary. This separated them. She would have liked to be like him, near to everyone, anyone, but she could not. It saddened her. Often, when they went out together, she left him.
Their first serious quarrel was about time. Pierre