flesh. She pulled out of the embrace and, holding me at arm’s length inquired coyly if I were not somewhat deceived.
“Deceived?” I echoed. “How do you mean?”
“Am I not too fat?” she said, dropping her eyes and resting them on her navel.
“Too fat? Why, you’re marvelous. You’re like a Renoir.”
At this she blushed. “A Renoir?” she repeated, almost as if she had never heard the name. “No, you’re joking.”
“Oh, never mind. Come here, let me stroke that pussy of yours.”
“Wait, I will first make my toilette.” As she moved towards the bidet she said: “You get into bed. Make it nice and toasty, yes?”
I undressed quickly, washed my cock out of politeness, and dove between the sheets. The bidet was right beside the bed. When she had finished her ablutions she began to dry herself with the thin, worn towel. I leaned over and grabbed her tousled bush, which was still a little dewy. She pushed me back into bed and, leaning over me, made a quick dive for it with her warm red mouth. I slipped a finger inside her to get the juice working. Then, pulling her on top of me, I sank it in up to the hilt. It was one of those cunts which fit like a glove. Her adroit muscular contractions soon had me gasping. All the while she licked my neck, my armpits, the lobes of my ears. With my two hands I lifted her up and down, rolling her pelvis round and round. Finally, with a groan, she bore down on me full weight; I rolled her over on her back, pulled her legs up over my shoulders, and went at her slam-bang. I thought I’d never stop coming; it came out in steady stream, as if from a garden hose. When I pulled away it seemed to me that I had an even bigger erection than when I plugged in.
“Ca c’est quelque chose,” she said, putting her hand around my cock and fingering it appraisingly. “You know how to do it, don’t you?”
We got up, washed, and crawled back into bed again. Reclining on an elbow, I ran my hand up and down her body. Her eyes were glowing as she lay back, thoroughly relaxed, her legs open, her flesh tingling. Nothing was said for several minutes. I lit a cigarette for her, put it in her mouth, and sank deep into the bed, staring contentedly at the ceiling.
“Are we going to see more of each other?” I asked after a time.
“That is up to you,” she said, taking a deep puff. She turned over to put her cigarette out and then, drawing close, gazing at me steadily, smiling, but serious, she said in her low, warbling voice: “Listen, I must talk to you seriously. There is a great favor I wish to ask of you . . . I am in trouble, great trouble. Would you help me, if I asked you to?”
“Of course,” I said, “but how?”
“I mean money,” she said, quietly and simply. “I need a great deal. . . I must have it. I won’t explain why. Just believe me, will you?”
I leaned over and yanked my pants off the chair. I fished out the bills and all the change that was in my pocket, and handed it to her.
“I’m giving you all I have,” I said. “That’s the best I can do.”
She laid the money on the night table beside her without looking at it and, bending over, she kissed my brow. “You’re a brick,” she said. She remained bent over me, looking into my eyes with mute, strangled gratitude, then kissed me on the mouth, not passionately, but slowly, lingeringly, as if to convey the affection which she couldn’t put into words and which she was too delicate to convey by offering her body.
“I can’t say anything now,” she said, falling back on the pillow. “Je suis émue, c’est tout.” Then, after a brief pause, she added: “It’s strange how one’s own people are never as good to one as a stranger. You Americans are very kind, very gentle. We have much to learn from you.”
It was such an old song to me, I almost felt ashamed of myself for having posed once again as the generous American. I explained to her that it was just an accident, my having so much money in my pocket. To this she replied that it was all the more wonderful, my gesture. “A Frenchman would hide it away,” she said. “He would never give it to the first girl he met just because she was in need of help. He wouldn’t believe her in the first place. ‘Je connais la chanson,’ he would say.”
I said nothing more. It was true and it wasn’t true. It takes all sorts to make a world and, though up to that time I had never met a generous Frenchman, I believed that they existed. If I had told her how ungenerous my own friends had been, my countrymen, she would never have believed me. And if I had added that it was not generosity which had prompted me, but self-pity, myself giving to myself (because nobody could be as generous to me as I myself), she would probably have thought me slightly cracked.
I snuggled up to her and buried my head in her bosom. I slid my head down and licked her navel. Then farther down, kissing the thick clump of hair. She drew my head up slowly and, pulling me on top of her, buried her tongue in my mouth. My cock stiffened instantly; it slid into her just as naturally as an engine going into a switch. I had one of those long, lingering hard-ons which drive a woman mad. I jibbed her about at will, now over, now under her, then sidewise, then drawing it out slowly, tantalizingly, massaging the lips of the vulva with the bristling tip of my cock. Finally I pulled it out altogether and twirled it around her breasts. She looked at it in astonishment. “Did you come?” she asked. “No,” I said. “We’re going to try something else now,” and I dragged her out of the bed and placed her in position for a proper, thorough back-scuttling. She reached up under her crotch and put it in for me, wiggling her ass around invitingly as she did so. Gripping her firmly around the waist, I shot it into her guts. “Oh, oh, that’s marvelous, that’s wonderful,” she grunted, rolling her ass with a frenzied swing. I pulled it out again to give it an airing, rubbing it playfully against her buttocks. “No, no,” she begged, “don’t do that. Stick it in, stick it all the way in . . . I can’t wait.” Again she reached under and placed it for me, bending her back still more now, and pushing upward as if to trap the chandelier. I could feel it coming again, from the middle of my spine; I bent my knees slightly and pushed it in another notch or two. Then bango! it burst like a sky rocket.
It was well into the dinner hour when we parted down the street in front of a urinal. I hadn’t made any definite appointment with her, nor had I inquired what her address might be. It was tacitly understood that the place to find her was at the café. Just as we were taking leave it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t even asked her what her name was. I called her back and asked her—not for her full name but for her first name. “N-Y-S,” she said, spelling it out. “Like the city, Nice.” I walked off, saying it over and over to myself. I had never heard of a girl being called by that name before. It sounded like the name of a precious stone.
When I reached the Place Clichy I realized that I was ravenously hungry. I stood in front of a fish restaurant on the Avenue de Clichy, studying the menu which was posted outside. I felt like having clams, lobsters, oysters, snails, a broiled bluefish, a tomato omelette, some tender asparagus tips, a savory cheese, a loaf of bread, a bottle of chilled wine, some figs and nuts. I felt in my pocket, as I always do before entering a restaurant, and found a tiny sou. “Shit,” I said to myself, “she might at least have spared me a few francs.”
I set out at a quick pace to see if there was anything in the larder at home. It was a good half hour’s walk to where we lived in Clichy, beyond the gates. Carl would already have had his dinner, but perhaps there would be a crust of bread and a little wine still standing on the table. I walked faster and faster, my hunger increasing with each step I took.
When I burst into
