Read Online The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet - Free Book Online

promiscuity, and he says that, at least at this time of day, he can be sure of being the first person of the day to penetrate me. Well, no, he isn’t, actually! I spent the night with someone else, and we had a fuck before I left; his come is still in my pussy. I stifle my exuberant laughter in the pillow. I can tell that Alexis is a little upset.
    Claude told me to read The Story of O, and there were three ways in which I identified with the heroine: I was always ready; my cunt certainly wasn’t barred with a chain, but I was sodomized as often as I was taken from the front; and finally, I would have loved her reclusive life in a house isolated from the rest of the world. Instead, I was already very act- ive in my professional life. But the convivial atmosphere of the art world, the facility with which—despite my fears—I formed
    connections with people, and the fact that these connections could so easily take a physical turn led me to believe that the space in which this sort of activity was carried out was a well-regulated, closed world. I have already used the word “family” several times. Sometimes this metaphor has not been a metaphor. For a long time I kept the adoles- cent trait of exerting my sexual attraction within a family circle, when a boy or a girl goes out with someone and drops him or her to go out with a brother or sister, or a cousin. I was once involved with two brothers along with their uncle. I was a friend of the uncle and he often brought along his two nephews, who were even younger than I. Unlike when this man would take me to meet friends of his, there was no preamble or stage manage- ment on these occasions. The uncle would get me going and the two brothers would nail me. I would relax afterward, listening to
    their men’s talk, some new home-improve- ment gadget or computer software.
    I am still on friendly terms with a number of men whom I first knew as regular sexual partners. In other cases, we have lost touch. I remember most of these acquaintances with genuine pleasure. When I worked with some of them, I found that the enduring intimacy and tenderness facilitated our collaboration. (Only once did I get angry about a serious work matter.) What’s more, I never remove a person from his own network of friends and relationships or from the activities he enjoys. I had met Alexis as part of a group of young critics and journalists who were trying to set up new artistic publications. I was fucking two other people on the same circuit, and in fact Alexis had asked me, rather tartly, whether I had set myself a schedule to be “fucked by every young critic in France.” We worked in a “school’s out” sort of atmo- sphere, and my two other colleague-lovers,
    unlike Alexis, were still a bit rough around the edges even though they were already married. They both had pimply faces and did not exactly take good care of themselves. I gave in to one of them because, having been lured to his apartment on the pretext of a translation that needed checking through (another one of those cramped little apart- ments on Saint-Germain-des-Prés), he had whined that, seeing I was sleeping with everyone, it would be really mean if I didn’t sleep with him. The other had tried his luck more confidently. He had arranged to meet me at his publisher’s office, and the recep- tionist told him I had arrived, adding—with the consideration typical of women in her profession—that the young woman waiting for him in reception was not wearing a bra under her blouse. The sexual relationship with the first man came to a pretty abrupt halt, but with the second it went on for
    several years. Later, they became collaborat- ors on Art Press and stayed there a long time.
    I have suggested that I met Éric through his friends, after hearing what they had to say about him. Among these friends was Robert, whom I met while putting together a piece on art foundries. In the event, he took me to a foundry in Le Creusot where