Read Online All the Way by Marie Darrieussecq - Free Book Online Page B

hands start to explore and grab and hunt and investigate—‘Oh Charlotte,’ says the huge body.
    Not really in ecstasy; more like reining in a horse. ‘Oh Charlotte,’ like she is a filly.
    She pulls herself together. A bit of decorum called for. Boogie with the fireman. He smells of sweat and cigarette smoke, she has a syrupy taste in her mouth. Blaring music and the dance floor flashing in time. He says, ‘Are you slack?’ or perhaps it was ‘I’ll give you a smack’. She can’t hear properly so they sidestep over to a pillar (‘lean back’?) where it’s pretty dark (‘new track’?) and one of the fireman’s hands is inside her underpants (‘what’re you like in the sack?’) and then one of the fireman’s fingers, it’s amazing, slides into her vagina (‘ah, it’s wider than a crack’?). She’ll be able to use tampons.
    But it’s kind of uncomfortable. She twists around to extricate herself, muffled words, he kisses her and pushes his finger in further, his hand stuck to her sucking wet cunt, uncomfortable but too bad, if that’s what he wants, let him keep going—right now, like this—she doesn’t dare take the initiative again, so she holds him by the shoulders, he rubs the lump in his jeans against her, he opens his fly and just then the boum boum boum of ‘Billie Jean’ starts up.
    It’s a sign! Her second favourite song. They’re having a special moment here, her first kiss, dedicated to Michael Jackson boum boum boum ! This song makes her feet and hips move irresistibly. I can’t help it! she yells, laughing, writhing away, dancing, but he holds onto her, grabs onto her, he shouts something, it sounds like ‘what the fuck’ (‘come out to my truck’ ‘get down ’n’ suck’) and his dick sticking out of his jeans, blinking beneath the lights and shadows.
    Billie Jean is not my lover boum boum boum .
    â€˜I couldn’t find you anywhere,’ says Terry, with almost no accent. ‘What did you do with that guy, what the fuck did you do with that guy,’ he’s just about shaking her.
    He’s a pompier , she pleads, there’s no harm in being with a pompier , how do you say pompier in English? Are people looking at them? Is someone going to make fun of her? There’s no one on the dance floor, four or five figures at the bar, and the fireman has disappeared.
    Trees and fields. The boum boum boum is getting weaker, whoo ooh in the branches, a stifling night. Her head is still resounding with the bass line. Perhaps it’s the Pineapple-Malibu. Her underpants go stiff as she scampers behind Terry, it feels weird.
    It must be three o’clock in the morning by the time they get back to the village and what’s left of the carnival. Christian is sitting slumped against his moped; apparently he vomited. Rose went home furious, ‘the worst night of her life, she’s going to give you hell’ (warns Nathalie, whose kohl is smudged and whose parents are there, with Georges, Papa’s mate, at the drinks stand, which is still open). The band is playing ‘Que je t’aime’, the singer has hair like Boy George. She doesn’t want Georges to see her (her parents’ Georges).
    Terry has disappeared. Nathalie is talking to some guys. Couples are dancing slowly. Clusters of people wander around. The trees are swaying. Wires are hanging from the branches. The sky is stencilled sheet metal. It becomes impossible to go home. Impossible to go to bed.
    She can still feel in her groin the sensation of the fireman’s hands, and his bristly face and the smoky taste, and right then and there, in front of the unmoving merry-go-round, it hits her—it’s all tight, burning, wet—at the mere thought of his hands and mouth, there’s a gripping sensation between her legs. Standing up, gaping, stunned,