Jonathan Littell - The Fata Morgana Books

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I must have been sleeping by the time she came back to bed. When I woke up, the sky through the windows was growing pale. The tentacles of the wisteria waved gently; the birds nestling in the branches began singing, a concert of shrill chirps. The woman lay half turned away, her face once again hidden beneath her long loose hair, I left her and quickly slipped into my tracksuit before going down to the living room. I entertained the idea of making myself coffee, immediately decided against it, and went down to the lower floor where the boy, curled in a narrow wooden bed, was sleeping. I sat on the edge and contemplated his severe face, lit by the slanting dawn light. Here too, birdsong filled the room. The child seemed to be breathing with difficulty, sweat was sticking his blond hair to his forehead, I brushed it away and he opened his eyes. “You are going?” he said without moving. I nodded. “I don’t want you to,” he said, staring at me stubbornly, almost greedily. — “But I have to,” I answered in a low voice. — “Why?” I thought about that and then replied: “Because I want to.” His gaze, both powerless and obstinate, grew veiled: “So, when you’re happy, I’m unhappy. And when I’m happy, you’re unhappy.”—“No, that’s not it at all. You’re getting it all mixed up.” I bent over, delicately kissed his damp forehead, got up and went out. In the garden, everything was calm, the leaves rustled gently, hiding the abrupt movements of the birds, which still hadn’t fallen silent. It was already hot, a strong morning heat that clung to the skin. The door opened easily and I found the hallway where I resumed my deliberate running, the wide strides in rhythm with my breathing. The hallway appeared a little lighter, I seemed better able to perceive the curves, even if I couldn’t manage precisely to locate either the walls or the ceiling, if there even was one. The temperature, here, was more moderate, but my body, heated by the running, was sweating in my clothes; the pants stuck to my hips, which didn’t prevent me, like a well-oiled machine, from maintaining a regular rhythm. I passed dark openings without slowing down, junctions or possibly merely alcoves; finally something on my left drew my attention, a metallic brilliance that floated in the corner of my vision; without hesitating or slowing down, I found the handle, opened the door and crossed the threshold. My foot sank into something soft and I stopped short. I found myself in a rather large, semi-dark room, sparsely furnished; on the walls, the golden vines of the wallpaper intertwined as they climbed; a dark red, almost blood-colored carpet covered the floor. Across the room, beyond the bed covered in a heavy golden cloth embroidered with long green grass, a figure with close-cropped jet black hair was standing in front of the window; the shutters were closed, but it was staring at something in the window, its own reflection perhaps. I contemplated it for a minute as if through a window pane, with a light, almost joyful feeling. At the sound of the door closing, it turned around, and I saw then that it was a woman, a beautiful woman whose matte, sharp-featured face lit up with a smile when she saw me. She skirted round the bed and embraced me, pressing her mobile little tongue between my lips, laughing. I lost my balance and fell with her onto the green leaves of the bedspread, my nose pressed against her short hair, filling my face with the smell of earth and cinnamon. Beneath me, she twisted, laughing, and tried to break loose. I straightened up and undertook as best I could to unbutton her sheer tulle blouse, brushing against her breasts held in by a rigid bra. She laughed again and slipped between my hands before kneeling on the green and gold expanse of the bed to re-button her blouse. “In the street,” she said, lifting her beautiful dark eyes, full of cheerfulness beneath eyelashes heavy with mascara, “I imagined I was touching your face. And now, here you are.” I stretched my hand out again toward her body and she brushed it away, laughing: “What impatience! Wait, I’m dying of hunger.” She picked up the receiver next to the bed, dialed a number and, holding up a cardboard menu, named a few items. I rose and shook my numb legs, then went into the bathroom where I opened wide the heavy porcelain faucets of the bathtub, my fingers beneath the stream of water to gauge the temperature.

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In the water, her back to me, she leaned her long brown body against mine. Her short, thick hair tickled my nostrils; I patiently caressed her arms, her belly, the tops of her breasts floating on the surface of the slightly greenish bathwater. A number of little scars decorated her dusky skin, rather thick, the bumps long or short depending on the place, I counted three on her left shoulder, one on her groin, a large one on her ribs, just beneath the right breast, another forked one at the angle of her jaw. Abrupt knocks sounded on the door to the room. The girl turned round in a loud splash, placed a quick kiss on my lips, and leapt out of the bathtub, slipping her streaming body into a terrycloth bathrobe before going to the door. I relaxed in the water, my face scarcely showing above the surface. A powerful feeling of plenitude filled my body, but an almost unsettling plenitude, impossible to grasp or possess, which left something like a sensation of emptiness behind it. Some noises, stifled by the water covering my ears, reached me indistinctly. I got out of the bath, dried myself quickly, pulled on the other bathrobe hanging there and, without taking the trouble to close it, went back into the bedroom. Kneeling once again on the golden bedspread, the girl was contemplating a large tray on which were lined up dishes in lacquered wood, covered with raw fish and pickled vegetables. Two golden beers frothed in tapered glasses. I joined her and began eating without a word. Aside from the sound of the chopsticks everything was quiet; behind the shutters, where there must have been a street or a courtyard, there was not a sound; a lone lamp standing by the bedside lit us with its yellowish halo, and I could distinctly make out our reflections in the windowpanes, two slightly blurred silhouettes, draped in white, which stood out from the field of green grasses of the bedspread. From time to time one of us offered a piece of fish to the other, who snapped it up with a surprised smile; when I kissed her, her lips had the bitter taste of beer. It was very dry in this room, I could feel my skin pulling at my hands and face; the raw fish as well made me thirsty, I quickly finished my beer. The girl got up, took my empty glass, and went into the bathroom. I finished the last little vegetables and piled the plates on the tray to go put it in a corner, on the floor. The girl still hadn’t come out and I got rid of my bathrobe to stretch out on the bedspread, on my belly, my head resting on my crossed arms. Turning my face I could glimpse the twin moon of my buttocks reflected in one of the windowpanes, white and slightly rounded. When the young woman reappeared she was naked too, splendid, her bare feet advanced on the blood-red carpet as she held the glass filled with water in front of her, her hips caught in a leather harness that held a long black phallus strapped to her pubis. I took the glass from her hand and drank. She moved behind me, without thinking I spread my legs and pointed my toes, her fingers, smeared with a liquid, slippery substance, threaded their way between my buttocks to massage the areola of my anus, my hips rose, she lay on top of me and I heard her husky breathing whistling in my ear as her hand played with my hair, pressing my head onto the bedspread. The object attached to her hips beat against my ass, heavy, hard, and silky. I arched my hips a little and it began to move between my buttocks, with a very deliberate slowness, then it withdrew and the tip caught, I slipped a hand behind my back to guide it and the girl leaned in with all her weight: then my ass opened all of a sudden and she entered me, her hands gripping my buttocks to spread them more and her head weighing on my neck. A cold, biting flame filled my pelvis, I hollowed out my back some more and leaned with both hands against the headboard, her hips were beating against mine now in large long strokes that kept spreading further through my body horribly sweet sensations, my legs twisted, sought a support, slid, her firm, soft thighs pressed on mine, her hands, now, rose up and pressed with all their weight on my head. Pleasure invaded my neck and shoulders, a long, diffuse, electric stream, I arched my back convulsively, my member, limp and almost forgotten, beat against the embroidery of the cloth to the rhythm of her moving hips; supporting myself on one shoulder, I pulled back a little, turned onto my side and opened my eyes to look beneath her arm. Her brown thigh, marked with several scars, entwined my own, much paler and covered with curly hairs; the leather straps which held in place the object with which she was working my hips shaped small bulges in her flesh: and in the window, beyond her long slim back, I could see her ass, two golden orbs pushed upwards by the straps beneath them, overlapping mine on the green and golden field of the bedspread. All of a sudden, the light went out, erasing the image in the window and plunging the room into darkness; even with my eyes wide open I could see nothing, the electricity must have gone out, I was coming now with all my muscles and she, heaving against me and panting, must have been coming too, finally she collapsed on my back, her pelvis tense against my buttocks, the immobile phallus planted inside me, I slipped one hand behind my head to rub her hair, she bit my neck and I still spasmodically moved my hips. The blade of pleasure, long successive waves, kept unfurling throughout my abandoned body. I wanted to pull myself together, perhaps withdraw to take her in turn, but a great somnolence invaded me, I yawned, my hands moved with more and more languor and lightness, I ran my fingers again over my back, my hips and her thighs and I fell asleep thus, her member still inside me and her body stretched out on mine, melting with pleasure.