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

a friendship with Bruno, but it was threatened periodic- ally by bursts of desire, sometimes aggress- ive, frustrated, not satisfactorily fulfilled, etc. It was my only truly chaotic experience. I would go to see him every day for weeks on end, then one day I would ring the doorbell and there would be no reply; the door would stay closed for several weeks, months even. And this would go on until my incredulous
    persistence was at last rewarded by a hoarse interjection on the telephone, authorizing me to come see him once again. Probably be- cause of this climate of uncertainty, I often came instantly to orgasm with him. We would talk volubly, exchanging impressions of books, usually standing in a sparse interi- or that would have made a Quaker feel at home. Time would pass and I would move toward him. “Do we want a little cuddle?” he would ask in the preoccupied but affection- ate voice of an adult disturbed in his work by a child. Then his hand would push aside my panties, and two fingers, four, would elicit a brief, anguished cry from me, because it was as much a sensation of breathtaking surprise as of pleasure. He himself would have the satisfaction of knowing that my pussy was already dripping. We were generous with our kisses and caresses. He made sweeping movements. If I was lying down, he would brush aside the sheet with the same gesture
    that he used to stroke my breasts throughout; I could lie straight and motion- less on my back while his palm swept up and down my entire length, as if I was just a sketch. When it was my turn to attend to him, in contrast I explored him minutely, paying special attention to the folds in his body, behind the ear, his groin, his armpits, the crack between his buttocks. I even scoured the furrowed lines in the crook of his hands. Throughout these preliminaries, I kept thinking how delicious it would be later on when he made up his mind to turn me over and take me the way I like it, from be- hind, when he grabbed my buttocks and smacked into them loudly and abruptly with his hips. I particularly like it when the dick jerks in and out; every three or four pumps, a slightly harder thrust comes as a glorious surprise. And yet it was only on a few excep- tional occasions that I felt the same intense pleasure as when his fingers opened up the
    way. So I would start thinking that perhaps the next time I would, and I settled in to wait, occupying myself with the need to force the resistance of that closed door or the mor- al lesson.
    Before that, I had a relationship with the author of the failed photographs taken in my office. He would arrange to meet me either in a hotel near Gobelins or in a disused apartment near the Gare de l’Est that was on loan to him. These meetings were always at an ungodly hour for anyone trying to carry on professional activities that were just a tad dependent on office hours: between eleven o’clock and midday, between half past three and four o’clock in the afternoon…The day before, I could already feel the anticipation in my pussy responding to the vibrating Métro seat while I looked forward to our re- union. The feeling could be so maddening that I sometimes preferred to get off a few stops before my destination, to calm myself
    down by walking. That man could lick my snatch indefinitely. His tongue moved lan- guorously, diligently parting all the folds of the vulva, knowingly describing circles round the clitoris then licking broadly like a young dog over the opening. The need to feel his sex breaching that gap became imperative. When at last he penetrated me, just as softly and delving just as meticulously as he had with his tongue, my pleasure never managed to measure up to the escalation of desire.
    Given the journeys I had to make to get to these rendezvous in only a short space of time, we sometimes missed each other. If he didn’t turn up, I would stay lying on the bed, swinging my legs, my wanting wedged pain- fully between my legs, stopping