Little Birds by Anaïs Nin

walked slowly back to where she lived. She dropped exhausted on her bed and fell asleep weeping, not only for the loss of Rango but for the loss of that part of herself she had deformed, changed for love of a man.
    The next day Rango was waiting for her at the door of her little hotel. He stood there reading and smoking. When she came out he said simply, "Come and have coffee with me." They sat at the Martinique Café, a café frequented by mulattos, prize fighters, drug addicts. He had chosen a dark corner of the cafe, and now he bent over her and began to kiss her. He did not pause. He kept her mouth on his and did not move. She dissolved in this kiss.
    They walked the streets like Parisian apaches, kissing continuously, making their way to his gypsy cart, half unconscious. Now in full daylight, the place was alive with gypsy women preparing to sell lace in the market. Their men slept. Others were preparing to travel south. Rango said he had always wanted to go with them. But he had a job playing guitar at a night club where they paid him well.
    "And now," he said, "I have you."
    In the cart he offered her wine and they smoked. And he kissed her again. He raised himself to close the little curtain. And then he undressed her, slowly, taking off the stockings delicately, his big brown hands handling them as if they were gauze, invisible. He stopped to look at her garters. He kissed her feet. He smiled at her. His face was strangely pure, illumined with a youthful joy, and he undressed her as if she were his first woman. He was awkward with her skirt but finally unhooked it, with a curiosity about the way it fastened. More adeptly he raised her sweater above her head, and she was left with only her panties on. He fell on her, kissing her mouth over and over again. Then he took off his own clothes, and fell on her again. As they kissed, his hand gripped her panties and pulled them, and he whispered, "You are so delicate, so small, I cannot believe that you have a sex." He parted her legs only to kiss her. She felt his penis hard against her belly, but he took it and pushed it downwards.
    Hilda was amazed to see him do this, push his penis down between his legs, cruelly, thrusting away his desire. It was as if he enjoyed denying himself, while at the same time arousing them both to a breaking point with kissing.
    Hilda moaned with the pleasure and the pain of expectancy. He moved over her body, now kissing her mouth, now her sex, so that the shell-like flavor of the sex was brought to her mouth and they mingled together, in his mouth and breath.
    But he continued to push away his penis, and when they had worn themselves out with unfulfilled excitement he lay over her and fell asleep like a child, his fists closed, his head on her breast. Now and then he caressed her, mumbling, "It is not possible that you have a sex. You are too delicate and small ... You are unreal..." He kept his hand between her legs. She rested against his body, which was twice the size of hers. She was vibrating so much that she could not sleep.
    His body smelled like a precious-wood forest; his hair, like sandalwood, his skin, like cedar. It was as if he had always lived among trees and plants. Lying at his side, deprived of her fulfillment, Hilda felt that the female in her was being taught to submit to the male, to obey his wishes. She felt that he was till punishing her for the gesture she had made, for her impatience, for her first act of leadership. He would rouse her and deprive her until he had broken this willfulness in her.
    Had he understood that it was involuntary, not truly in her? Whether he had or not, he was blindly determined to break her. Over and over again they met, undressed, lay side by side, kissed and caressed themselves to a frenzy, and each time he pushed his penis downwards and hid it away.
    Over and over again she lay passive, showing no desire, no impatience. She was in a state of excitement, which exacerbated all her