The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet Page A

up without stop- ping. And I appreciated that pause in the same way as I valued those moments when I withdrew into myself during a meal or while out with friends. Of course, I wondered about this new reaction. The answer I found was that by constantly talking openly about these sort of practices with people who did or did not perform them; by commenting on them and interpreting them, usually with the arsenal of lay psychoanalysis (which had the same effect on me as a cavalry regiment des- cending on an encampment of rebel Indi- ans); in short, by heading to a couch three times a week not to fuck but to talk about it, I had—without realizing it—taken on the role not only of an active participant but also of an observer.
    And it was when I moved away from the center of the spiral that I discovered something: my pleasure was never more in- tense than when it was the first time—not the first time that I made love with someone, but the first time we kissed; even the first em- brace was enough. Obviously there were ex- ceptions. Be that as it may, in most cases, even if what followed was not unpleasant, it was a bit like biting into the cone when you no longer have a mouthful of ice cream to melt on your tongue; it had all the attraction of a painting that you admire but on which you are feasting your eyes for the fifteenth time. If I was taken by surprise, the pleasure was overwhelming. It is these situations that provide some of my clearest recollections of orgasms. I can cite them: late at night, cross- ing the huge lobby of an Inter-Continental hotel; the elegant and distinguished assistant who has been traveling across the country with me for more than two weeks catches
    hold of my arm after we have just said good- night to each other, pulls me to him and kisses me on the mouth. “In the morning, I’ll come and see you in your room.” I can feel the spasm rising right up to my stomach, and I set off toward the tiny little concierge’s desk in the distance, twisting my ankle as I go.
    Another time, I dive down onto the carpet next to the master of the house, who, slightly drunk, has crashed out on the floor next to some other guests, and who pulls me toward him by tugging under the neck of my sweat- er, kissing me slowly with one of those cinema kisses that makes your head roll from side to side; this was not an evening destined to turn into an orgy, his wife was holding a conversation in the next room. One of his friends who was also sitting on the floor like us and whose face happened to be on a level with ours, watched us in amazement. I go completely limp.
    And more: going to see the “Dernier Picas- so” exhibition at the Pompidou Center with Bruno, with him there is always an element of chance. As he goes out of my field of vision while I go up to one of the paintings, his presence becomes all the more vivid and I am caught unaware by a brief but very dis- tinct wetness between my legs. As I keep looking at the exhibition, I can feel the slimy patch on my tights alternately against the lips of my vagina and the swell of my inner thigh, shifting as I walk. In an early period of my life, I didn’t really care whether I reex- perienced these feelings in more extensive caresses or during penetration, but later on, when I had come to understand how singu- larly limited it was, I started to hope that that faraway, ineffable tension in my lower abdomen, and the famous wave that dissip- ated it, could be repeated again and again as a relationship continued.
    As I approached middle age, I had two suc- cessive relationships, one easygoing and the other emotionally charged, but nevertheless they both followed a similar pattern: I took the time to let the desire I felt for the other soak in, which made that desire all the more pronounced; it culminated in passionate bouts of fucking during which my satisfac- tion was never as complete as it had been in the inaugural physical contact. For many years I faithfully maintained