Read Online Little Birds by Anaïs Nin - Free Book Online

take me. I wanted now to be made a woman quickly. I did not like being a virgin, always defending myself. I felt that everyone knew I was a virgin and was all the more keen to conquer me.
    That evening Stephen and I were going out together. Somehow or other I must tell him. I must tell him that I was in danger of being raped, that he'd better do it first. No, he would then be so anxious. How could I tell him?
    I had news for him. I was the star model now. I had more work than anyone in the club, there were more demands for me because I was a foreigner and had an unusual face. I often had to pose in the evenings. I told Stephen all this. He was proud of me.
    "You like your posing?" he said.
    "I love it. I love to be with painters, to see them work-good or bad, I like the atmosphere of it, the stories I hear. It is varied, never the same. It is really adventure."
    "Do they ... do they make love to you?" Stephen asked.
    "Not if you don't want them to."
    "But do they try...?"
    I saw that he was anxious. We were walking to my house from the railway station, through the dark fields. I turned to him and offered my mouth. He kissed me. I said, "Stephen, take me, take me, take me."
    He was completely dumbfounded. I was throwing myself into the refuge of his big arms, I wanted to be taken and have it all over with, I wanted to be made woman. But he was absolutely still, frightened. He said, "I want to marry you, but I can't do it just now."
    "I don't care about the marriage."
    But now I became conscious of his surprise, and it quieted me. I was immensely disappointed by his conventional attitude. The moment passed. He thought it was merely an attack of blind passion, that I had lost my head. He was even proud to have protected me against my own impulses. I went home to bed and sobbed.
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    O NE ILLUSTRATOR asked me if I would pose on Sunday, that he was in a great rush to finish a poster. I consented. When I arrived he was already at work. It was morning and the building seemed deserted. His studio was on the thirteenth floor. He had half of the poster done. I got undressed quickly and put on the evening dress he had given me to wear. He did not seem to pay any attention to me. We worked in peace for a long while. I grew tired. He noticed it and gave me a rest. I walked about the studio looking at the other pictures. They were mostly portraits of actresses. I asked him who they were. He answered me with details about their sexual tastes:
    "Oh, this one, this one demands romanticism. It's the only way you can get near her. She makes it difficult. She is European and she likes an intricate courtship. Halfway through I gave it up. It was too strenuous. She was very beautiful though, and there is something wonderful about getting a woman like that in bed. She had beautiful eyes, an entranced air, like some Hindu mystic. It makes you wonder how they will behave in bed.
    "I have known other sexual angels. It is wonderful to see the change in them. These clear eyes that you can see through, these bodies that take such beautiful harmonious poses, these delicate hands ... how they change when desire takes hold of them. The sexual angels! They are wonderful because it is such a surprise, such a change. You, for instance, with your appearance of never having been touched, I can see you biting and scratching ... I am sure your very voice changes—I have seen such changes. There are women's voices that sound like poetic, unearthly echoes. Then they change. The eyes change. I believe that all these legends about people changing into animals at night—like the stories of the werewolf, for instance—were invented by men who saw women transform at night from idealized, worshipful creatures into animals and thought that they were possessed. But I know it is something much simpler than that. You are a virgin, aren't you?"
    "No, I am married," I said.
    "Married or not, you are a virgin. I can tell. I am never deceived. If you are married your