Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [74]
It was only after Maman had stared at the Basque’s trousers that she recognized him and smiled. The Basque, it is true, shared this passion for nuances with Maman, and she knew he was not easily satisfied. He had a capricious member. Faced with a letter-box vagina, it rebelled. Faced with an astringent tube, it withdrew. He was a connoisseur, a gourmet, of women’s jewel boxes. He liked them velvet-lined and cozy, affectionate and clinging. Maman gave him a more lingering look than she gave other customers. She liked the Basque, and it was not for his short-nosed, classical profile, his almond-shaped eyes, his glossy black hair, his gliding smooth walk, his nonchalant gestures. It was not for his red scarf and his cap sitting at a roguish angle on his head. It was not for his seductive ways with women. It was for his royal pendentif, the noble bulk of it, the sensitive and untiring responsiveness of it, its friendliness, its cordiality, its expansiveness. She had never seen such a one. He would lay it on the table sometimes as if he were depositing a bag of money, rap with it as if calling for attention. He took it out naturally, as other men take off their coats when they are warm. He gave the impression that it was not at ease shut in, confined, that it was to be aired, to be admired.
Maman indulged herself continuously in her habit of looking at men’s possessions. When men came out of the urinoirs, finishing their buttoning, she had the luck to catch the last flash of some golden member, or some dark-brown one, or some fine-pointed one, which she preferred. On the boulevards she was often rewarded with the sight of carelessly buttoned trousers, and her eyes, which were gifted with keen vision, could penetrate the shaded opening. Better still if she caught a tramp unburdening himself against a tenement wall, holding his member pensively in his hand, as though it were his very last silver piece.
One might think that Maman was deprived of the more intimate possession of such pleasure, but it was not so. The clients of her house found her appetizing, and they knew her virtues and advantages over the other women. Maman could produce a truly delectable juice for the feasts of love, which most of the women had to manufacture artificially. Maman could give a man the full illusion of a tender meal, something very soft under the teeth and wet enough to satisfy anyone’s thirst.
Among themselves they often talked about the delicate sauces in which Maman knew how to wrap her shell-pink morsels, the drumlike tightness of her offerings. One could trap this round shell, once, twice, it was enough. Maman’s delectable flavoring would appear, something her girls could rarely produce, a honey that smelled of seashell and that made the passage into the female alcove between her thighs a delight to the male visitor.
The Basque liked it there. It was emollient, saturating, warm and grateful – a feast. For Maman it was a holiday, and she gave her maximum.
The Basque knew she did not need long preparation. All day Maman had nourished herself with the expeditions of her eyes, which never traveled above or below the middle of a man’s body. They were always on a level with the trouser opening. She appraised the wrinkled ones, too hastily closed after a quick séance. The finely pressed ones, not yet crushed. The stains, oh, the stains of love!