Even as I was saying it, I realized how stupid it was to tell him that. Because it is true, sort of. The few times I’ve come in the last couple of years were with Ginette when a john took both of us on (which of course doesn’t mean I’m really a lesbian). Anyway, you’re always a sucker when you tell the truth. I was only hoping that if he thought about me and Ginette, he’d finally get going and I could get him off me. He instantly said, “If that’s the only problem, darling, then we can take as many girls to bed as you can manage.” And I didn’t even have time to think, Of course, you pig! when he already had his hand on me, and I could barely say, “Take your hand away!” when he started to thrust into me very hard—and maybe I accidentally thought of Ginette and the way she comes when some guy fucks her and I play around with her—anyway, I didn’t push his hand away—and all at once, I felt I was going to come, and I screamed, “What the hell are you doing to me!” and I felt him coming at the same time, and I came too and I didn’t know what was going on, only that now he had his mouth on mine and was kissing me wildly, and that now I didn’t even care that a stranger was kissing me on the mouth, because it was good and just like making love.

The worst part was that I dozed off right away. (I’m like a man that way.) But I can’t have been sleeping for long, maybe fifteen minutes. And when I awoke, it was like when you’re swimming in the ocean and a wave comes and lifts you up—and he was there and he caught me in his arms.

But that was only a dream. Actually I woke up because he was caressing me. He had uncovered me all the way and was kneeling over me and caressing my body, my shoulders, my arms, my breasts, my hips—and as though something exquisite remained in his hands, a fragrance or shimmer, some rare happiness in the feeling of warm fullness, he kept kissing his palms, the way an Arab or Hindu prays. It was very sweet, and I pretended I was still asleep so I could enjoy it, dope that I was. He wrapped me in his goddamn tenderness—I got so mad I nearly started to cry. “You lousy bastard,” I said, “you pig, you sonofabitch!” I hit him, and he laughed, and so we scuffled around, almost tumbling out of bed, and then he was inside me again with his monkey skill, and this time he didn’t need any help from his fingers, and I didn’t think about Ginette, or anything else, I just came like in some dirty book, where they always come like it was as natural as pissing.