Thierry Jonquet - Tarantula

“ So, my little Eve, have you nothing else to say for yourself? ”

You asked him what he had done to you. It was very simple, he told you. He proceeded to push the examining table into the other cellar room, the room where you had been imprisoned for so long .

“ My dear girl, I’m afraid I was not able to take photographs of the surgery I have just performed on you. But since it is a very common procedure, I can explain it to you by means of a short film .”

He started a projector, and on a screen hung on one wall an operating room soon appeared. An off-screen voice, not Mygale’s, delivered a commentary .

“ Following a hormonal treatment lasting two years, we are able to perform a vaginoplasty on Monsieur X, with whom we have had numerous preparatory consultations .

“ We begin, after anesthesia, by cutting away a flap of the glans penis 1.2 centimeters in length, then we detach the entirety of the skin of the shaft of the penis down to the root. Next we dissect the pedicle, likewise to the root. We proceed in an identical manner with respect to the dorsal vasculo-nervous pedicle of the penis. The aim is to bring the anterior layer of the corpora cavernosa down over the root of the penis .”

You could not take your eyes off the spectacle of these men in surgical gloves with their scalpels and forceps, cutting into flesh as Mygale had cut into your flesh .

“ A second intervention calls for a scroto-perineal incision 3 centimeters in front of the anus, the exteriorization of the penis through this incision, and the continued dissection of the skin and the flap of the glans penis .

“ Here we continue to isolate the urethra and separate the corpora cavernosa along the median line .”

Mygale laughed and laughed. He got up from time to time to adjust the focus and pat you on the cheek .

“ A third stage involves the construction of a neovagina 4 centimeters wide and 12–16 centimeters in depth. Here we see the closing of the anterior extremity of the sheath of the penis and the invagination of the skin of the penis into the neovagina .

“ The glans flap is exteriorized so as to form a neoclitoris. The skin of the scrotum, which has been kept very thin, is itself resected and will serve to create the labia majora .

“ Here we see the same patient several months later. The outcome is very satisfactory: the vagina is a good size and completely functional; the clitoris is perfectly active and sensitive; and the urethral orifice is well positioned and attended by no urinary complications .”

The film was over. You had an itching sensation amid the pain in your lower belly. You wanted to urinate. He had introduced a drain, and it was by way of the resulting strange sensation that you arrived at a new perception of your sexual parts. You cried out once more .

It was awful; you could not get to sleep. Mygale shot you up with tranquilizers. Later on, he undid your restraints to get you on your feet. Taking tiny steps, you walked round in circles. The drain dangled between your legs along with the two tubes, each leading to a vacuum bottle that was supposed to suck up your secretions. Mygale held one bottle, and the other was thrust into the pocket of your robe. You had no strength at all. Mygale soon took you out of the cellar and set you up in a small flat. There was a dressing room, a bedroom … The light blinded you, for this was the first time you had left your prison in two years. The sunshine bathed your face deliciously .

Your “convalescence” lasted a very long time. The drain disappeared, the two bottles also. All that was left was that hole, down there between your legs. Mygale obliged you to have a plug in your vagina all the time; otherwise, he said, the skin would close up. You kept it inside you for months and months. There was a very sensitive place there, too, just above: your clitoris .

The door to your bedroom was always locked. Through the slats of the closed shutters, you could see grounds, a little pond, some swans. Mygale came to see you every day, spending long hours with you. Speaking to you about your new life. About the person—the woman—you had become .

You took up the piano again, and painting. Since you now had breasts and that hole down between your thighs, you had no choice but to go along. What good would running away do? Going back home after such a long time? Could the place Vincent had once known even be called home? What would the people who had known him say? No, you had no real choice. All the makeup, the dressing, the perfume … And then, to top it off, Mygale took you one day to the Bois de Boulogne. After that, you were beyond hope .

Today, the man is sleeping near you. He must be uncomfortable crammed into that armchair. When he found you in the cellar, he kissed you, he took you in his arms. The bedroom door is open. What does he want now?

Richard opened his eyes. His back ached. He had a strange sensation: he had spent the whole night watching over Eve, but now a rustle of fabric—the sheet, perhaps—suggested that Eve was awake, watching him in the first light of day. There she was, in the bed, her eyes wide open. Richard smiled, got to his feet, stretched, and went to sit on the edge of the bed. When he spoke, he fell back absurdly into the polite form of address, a habit that he had instituted and which he abandoned only during his hate-filled obscene tirades.

“Are you feeling better? It’s all over. I mean, it’s finished—you can leave. I’ll take care of the paperwork, your new identity. That’s the usual thing. You understand? You’ll go to the police, tell them everything…”

Richard was admitting defeat and couldn’t stop. He was pitiful. His defeat was total, humiliating—but it came too late to punish a hatred that was already extinct.

Eve got up, took a bath, and dressed. She went down to the drawing room. Richard found her by the pond. He had come with crumbled bread, which he threw to the swans. She crouched by the waterside and whistled to the birds. They cruised over and bowed their necks to take the morsels of bread from her hand.

The day was splendid. The two of them made for the house together and sat side by side in the swing by the swimming pool. They stayed there a good while, close together, without a word.

“Richard?” said Eve at last, “I want to see the sea.”

He turned toward her, looked at her with immense sadness, and nodded. They went back inside. Eve went off to find a bag and stuff a few things in it. Richard waited for her in the car.

They set off. She lowered her window and played at resisting the wind, extending her hand outside the car. He suggested she stop, for fear that insects or flying gravel might hurt her.

Richard drove fast, devouring the curves in a kind of frenzy. She asked him to slow down. Before long, the seaside cliffs came into view.

The pebble beach of Etretat was black with people. Vacationers jammed the water’s edge. It was low tide. The two walked along the beachfront and followed the foot of the cliffs through the tunnel that leads to another beach where the Hollow Needle stands.

Eve asked Richard whether he had read a novel by Maurice Leblanc, a wild tale of bandits holed up in a cavern carved out of the inside of a cliff. No, he had not read it. He laughed as he answered her, with a nuance of bitterness, as much as to say that his profession left him precious little leisure time. But Eve did not give up: how could anyone not know Arsène Lupin?

Retracing their steps, they headed back to the town. Eve was hungry. They took a table on the terrace of a seafood restaurant. She set about a plateful of oysters and whelks. Richard toyed with a spider-crab claw, then let her finish eating on her own.