It was like we actually had been married for ten years, and I decided to really bullshit, and I said emphatically, “Come to me now, but first you have to put on a rubber.” But even that didn’t faze him, even though usually johns give me the most long-winded arguments. He was as patient as a Franciscan and he smiled down at me (he was resting his head on his arm and looking into my face so kindly, it was like he was my aunt), and finally he just said, “Don’t be difficult, dear. I’m not sick. If you like, you can examine me.”

So that’s the way it was. Fine then.

I looked him over and milked him and squeezed him so hard that I figured blood would come out. In any case, he was no Jew. And finally, he pulled me back on the pillow and said, “That’s enough now, isn’t it?” And he was already inside me; I don’t even know how, but as skillful as a monkey and real deep right away. And he stayed like that for a while and just slowly moved around in me.

It wasn’t the way it sometimes happens with a woman—a guy comes along and gets inside you, and suddenly you come, even though there’s nothing special about him and you’re not especially fond of him—it’s simply that you’re compatible in some way you can’t explain. That wasn’t it. I just started liking it. His tenderness, too. He wasn’t excited the way men usually are. He could have gone outside on the street with the same expression on his face. Except that he looked happy. He closed his eyes whenever he gave me one of his soft, tender kisses.

I thought to myself, So that’s what he’s trying to pull, the bastard: he wants to drive you wild. When I acted like I couldn’t wait anymore and wanted him to give it to me now, and began wiggling my ass and breathing heavily and rolling my eyes, he held me tight and said, “Shhh!” The way you shush a child. So finally I asked him, “Why don’t you come? Is it hard for you?” And he said in the quietest voice in the world, “I like to have a little fun doing this. Don’t you?”

Finally I told him he couldn’t expect that from me. First I said, “I only come with my husband. You can understand. It’s the one thing that only he gets from me.” And I was about to think up a guy I lived with, who protected me and who I came with (even though that never happened with my Jules and was anyway very rare—once with Ginette, and with a man yes, but only once, a long, long time ago). But he must have smelled a rat. He said (still smiling and in his quiet voice), “Don’t tell me fairy tales. You’re just lazy, that’s all. I understand that you can’t come with every man if you don’t want to ruin yourself. But I’ll give you another hundred francs, so you can take the rest of the night off.”