Delta of Venus - Anais Nin [96]
She was unaffected by the fall of the screen. She said, ‘Now look what I have done taking my stockings off. Hand me the kimono.’ He approached, staring at her – the first naked woman he had seen, so much like paintings he had studied in the museum.
She was smiling. Then she covered herself as if nothing had happened and went to the fire, extending her hand to the heat. Pierre was completely unnerved. His body was burning, yet he did not quite know what to do about it.
She was careless about holding the kimono around her, intent on warming herself. Pierre sat at her feet and stared at her smiling, open face. Her eyes seemed to invite him. He moved closer to her, still kneeling. Suddenly she opened the kimono, took his head between her hands, placed it on her sex for his mouth to feel. The tendrils of pubic hair touched his lips and maddened him. At that very moment his mother’s voice came from the far-off bedroom. ‘Pierre! Pierre!’
He straightened himself. His mother’s friend closed her kimono. They were left trembling, burning, unsatisfied. The friend went to his mother’s room, sat at the foot of her bed and chatted with her. Pierre sat with them, nervously waiting until the woman was ready to get dressed again. The afternoon seemed endless. Then, finally, she rose and said she must dress. But Pierre’s mother detained him. She wanted something to drink. She wanted the curtains drawn. She kept him occupied until the friend was dressed. Had she guessed what might have been happening in the parlor? Pierre was left with the touch of her hair and rosy skin on his lips, nothing else.
When the friend left, his mother talked to him in the half-dark room.
‘Poor Mary Ann,’ she said. ‘Did you know, a terrible thing happened to her when she was young. It was when the Prussians invaded Alsace-Lorraine. She was raped by soldiers. And now she will not let a man near her.’
The image of Mary Ann being violated inflamed Pierre. He could barely conceal his disturbance. Mary Ann had trusted his youth and innocence. She had lost her fear of men with him. He was like a child to her. So she had permitted his young, tender face between her legs.
That night he dreamed of soldiers tearing her clothes, spreading her legs, and he awakened with a violent desire for her. How could he see her now? Would she ever let him do more to her than kiss her sex gently as he had done? Was she closed forever?
He wrote her a letter. He was amazed when he received an answer. She asked him to come and see her. Wearing a loose robe, she greeted him in a dimly lighted room. His first movement was to kneel before her. She smiled indulgently. ‘How gentle you are,’ she said. Then she pointed to a wide divan in the corner and stretched herself on it. He stretched himself beside her. He felt timid and could not move.
Then he felt her hand deftly inserting itself under his belt, slipping inside his pants, sliding along, close to the belly, arousing every bit of flesh she touched, gliding, descending.
The hand stopped at his pubic hair, played with it, moved around the penis without touching it. It began to stir. He thought if she touched his penis it would kill him with pleasure. His mouth opened with the suspense.
Her hand continued to move slowly, slowly around and over his pubic hair. A finger sought the tiny rivulet between the hair and the sex where the skin was smooth, sought every sensitive part of the young man, slid along under his penis, pressed his balls.
Finally her hand closed around his throbbing penis. And it was a shock of such intense pleasure that he sighed. His own hand went out, blindly fumbling through her clothes. He, too, wanted to touch the core of her sensations. He, too, wanted to glide along and enter into her secret places. He fumbled with her clothes. He found an opening. He touched her pubic hair and the rivulet between the leg and the mount of Venus, felt the tender flesh, found moisture and dipped his finger into it.
Then in a frenzy he tried to push his penis into her. He saw all the soldiers charging into her. The blood rushed