Read Online Breathless by Nancy K. Miller - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nancy K. Miller
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like the city cousin in the movie, without a care in the world.
What fascinated me in Les Cousins was the moment of instant, melting turn-on, when the girl touches the city cousin’s chest. I had never had that experience, certainly not with Bernard, so I probably should have bailed out of that movie plot right then. The truth was that I wasworking on sex with Bernard, just as I worked on my French. At least the two worked together. I was as determined to come as he was to make me come, and it annoyed both of us—competitively—that it happened for Monique so quickly.
I wanted Monique’s orgasm.
Mediterranean in looks and personality, Bernard was dark, with curly hair and brown eyes. His body, graceful and muscular, looked as though it would be at home on the beach, where he had grown up playing volleyball on the sand, but bed was not the beach. Bed was more like boot camp. Bernard assured me that what I wanted would happen only if he rid me of all my bad habits ( le système américain) , my years of training as a demi-vierge. All those exquisite caresses had short-circuited my capacity for real pleasure, he said. His project was to make me come without touching any part of my body with his hands. (Bernard had not read D.H. Lawrence on the subject, but he was as doctrinaire.) No caresses until we got to the next stage. Bernard would position himself above me and, holding himself aloft athletically, move around inside me. This is going to take a long time, I sometimes thought, admiring his stamina, as the nights wore on. But what was the point of not being a virgin if you didn’t come?
This single-minded focus on coming was different from evenings in my room with Leo, which we mainly spent talking; coming was not a topic of conversation. “It will happen,” he’d say reassuringly, “you’ll see.” Finally, one Sunday afternoon, when I thought the thrusting would never end, it happened. Not the magic I had dreamed of, true, not the earth moving, but I had to admit there was something palpably new, a head-to-toe spasm, something like an inner release. We emerged from the bedroom with our announcement. Bernard has conquered the American girl’s frigidity, compliments all around. Alain broke out the champagne. The cousins congratulated each other.
I lifted a glass—undeniably, something had happened—but I felt embarrassed, diminished somehow, in my own eyes. (Was this what caused Monique to look shattered?)
“I had no wish to enjoy,” the Marquise de Merteuil explains to her partner in crime, when she narrates her sexual history. “I wantedto know.” I was chagrined to discover that for me, like the Marquise, thus far the idea of coming had been more exciting than the act; even so, she seemed to have reached the enjoyment part rather quickly. Maybe it wasn’t the act but the partner. Maybe I was in the wrong movie again. It was hard to know. In the meantime, I would go along with Bernard’s sex program, keeping my skepticism about it to myself. I wouldn’t fake frigidity (what the Marquise said was the best way to find out what she liked; that way no man could ever think he had power over her) or orgasm, but I would stop reporting.
Practicing sex as I practiced the piano when I lived at home, for every new sensation, I gave myself invisible gold stars like the ones my Viennese teacher used to paste on my music pages.
Le Foot
F AMILY WAS THE SUPREME VALUE for Alain and Bernard. In practice this meant Sunday lunch with Bernard’s older brother in the suburbs. The four of us would take a train around eleven in the morning and arrive in time for the ritual of the apéro . Drinks were the only time the television wasn’t turned on for the afternoon soccer game ( le foot) . Bernard was the star of this interval, since as a group we had little to say to each other beyond exchanging anecdotes about family members, none of whom I knew, and telling jokes. Sometimes I recognized the jokes as borscht belt
What fascinated me in Les Cousins was the moment of instant, melting turn-on, when the girl touches the city cousin’s chest. I had never had that experience, certainly not with Bernard, so I probably should have bailed out of that movie plot right then. The truth was that I wasworking on sex with Bernard, just as I worked on my French. At least the two worked together. I was as determined to come as he was to make me come, and it annoyed both of us—competitively—that it happened for Monique so quickly.
I wanted Monique’s orgasm.
Mediterranean in looks and personality, Bernard was dark, with curly hair and brown eyes. His body, graceful and muscular, looked as though it would be at home on the beach, where he had grown up playing volleyball on the sand, but bed was not the beach. Bed was more like boot camp. Bernard assured me that what I wanted would happen only if he rid me of all my bad habits ( le système américain) , my years of training as a demi-vierge. All those exquisite caresses had short-circuited my capacity for real pleasure, he said. His project was to make me come without touching any part of my body with his hands. (Bernard had not read D.H. Lawrence on the subject, but he was as doctrinaire.) No caresses until we got to the next stage. Bernard would position himself above me and, holding himself aloft athletically, move around inside me. This is going to take a long time, I sometimes thought, admiring his stamina, as the nights wore on. But what was the point of not being a virgin if you didn’t come?
This single-minded focus on coming was different from evenings in my room with Leo, which we mainly spent talking; coming was not a topic of conversation. “It will happen,” he’d say reassuringly, “you’ll see.” Finally, one Sunday afternoon, when I thought the thrusting would never end, it happened. Not the magic I had dreamed of, true, not the earth moving, but I had to admit there was something palpably new, a head-to-toe spasm, something like an inner release. We emerged from the bedroom with our announcement. Bernard has conquered the American girl’s frigidity, compliments all around. Alain broke out the champagne. The cousins congratulated each other.
I lifted a glass—undeniably, something had happened—but I felt embarrassed, diminished somehow, in my own eyes. (Was this what caused Monique to look shattered?)
“I had no wish to enjoy,” the Marquise de Merteuil explains to her partner in crime, when she narrates her sexual history. “I wantedto know.” I was chagrined to discover that for me, like the Marquise, thus far the idea of coming had been more exciting than the act; even so, she seemed to have reached the enjoyment part rather quickly. Maybe it wasn’t the act but the partner. Maybe I was in the wrong movie again. It was hard to know. In the meantime, I would go along with Bernard’s sex program, keeping my skepticism about it to myself. I wouldn’t fake frigidity (what the Marquise said was the best way to find out what she liked; that way no man could ever think he had power over her) or orgasm, but I would stop reporting.
Practicing sex as I practiced the piano when I lived at home, for every new sensation, I gave myself invisible gold stars like the ones my Viennese teacher used to paste on my music pages.
Le Foot
F AMILY WAS THE SUPREME VALUE for Alain and Bernard. In practice this meant Sunday lunch with Bernard’s older brother in the suburbs. The four of us would take a train around eleven in the morning and arrive in time for the ritual of the apéro . Drinks were the only time the television wasn’t turned on for the afternoon soccer game ( le foot) . Bernard was the star of this interval, since as a group we had little to say to each other beyond exchanging anecdotes about family members, none of whom I knew, and telling jokes. Sometimes I recognized the jokes as borscht belt