M’Barka would wait until we were asleep before going to his reception room. She’d leave us then, her mind at ease, to carryout her conjugal duties and make her man happy. Severaltimes I tried to stay awake to witness this magic moment: herheading out into the darkness towards love. In vain. Backthen I had no trouble sleeping. I’d climb into bed and thedarkness inside me would almost immediately become amovie screen. It was a talent I inherited from my mother.

On love-making nights, my mother’s snoring was no longer there to accompany us, cradle us. To love us. Gettingup the next day was hard, something was missing, butM’Barka would have already returned, in her spot, betweenRabiaa and Mustapha.

My dreams at night weren’t sexual. On the other hand, on certain days my imagination would easily, and with a certainlevel of arousal, tread on torrid and slightly incestuousground. I would be in bed with my parents. My father insidemy mother. My fathers big, hard dick (it couldn’t have beenanything else but big!) penetrating my mother’s enormousvagina. I’d hear their noise, their breath. At first, I wouldn’tsee anything, everything would be black, but eventually I’d bethere beside them, closely watching these two bodies that Iknew so well and at the same time didn’t know. I’d be readyto lend a helping hand, aroused, happy and panting alongwith them. Mohamed would take M’Barka right away, sometimes without even undressing her. Their sexual couplingwould last a long time, a very long time. They never spoke,and they always presented themselves to one another withtheir eyes closed. A perfect sexual harmony naturallyachieved. They were made for one another, sex was clearly thepreferred language through which the image of the couplethey formed could be expressed. Even after bringing ninechildren into the world, their desire for one another remainedintact, mysteriously and joyously intact.

In my mind, my family’s reality has a strong sexual quality, it is as if we have all been one another’s partners, we blendedtogether ceaselessly, without guilt. Sex, regardless of who wehave it with, should never scare us. My mother, her life, herpleasure and her tastes, has taught me this lesson I shall neverforget and that I sometimes, naively, try to put into practice.

My parents lovemaking nights often ended in a noisy uproar. My parents fought after sex. Noisily. Violently. It wasalways the same story, a story that never died.

My mother’s screams, hysterical, possessed, beyond herself, would wake us up in the middle of the night.