years old and that kid, I swear, invented a series of grubby games that I had never seen a man even think of. She wised me up as to the possibilities between two women, and the things I learned with her I later practiced with lesbians.
“It bothers me to tell you all this, but yet it doesn't bother me any more to do the things I've described. You don't know what it's like to be a whore. I was ten years old when mama had a banker sleeping with us who… Can you guess what? Who liked to cornhole mama right up to the root and then withdraw his prick and put it in my mouth to be sucked. And the dirtier it was the more enjoyment he got from it.
“I'm used to that sort of thing, though. And then I did the same things that I did with mama to another woman, and… But a child gets used to these things so quickly… The other woman was a very pretty prostitute named Lucette whom I used to like and who slept with us all the time. She never used to go with men except through the behind like the rest of us. And when mother saw that I liked her, the two of them got together and told me that at my age it was time I was learning to eat shit, that it wasn't hard, and that Lucette would teach me how.
“Oh! I can see what you're thinking… that it was easier for Lucette than for me… But that isn't true. Think about it a minute and you'll see what I mean. I know you now. Suppose you have a poor little girl about ten years old who has never done that. Do you think that you'd have the courage? I think that Lucette was very kind with me. And she pitied me, the poor thing. I remember that each time she did it she kissed me on the mouth afterwards so as not to seem to be trying to humiliate me. Poor Lucette!
“What do you want? I do everything that I'm told. I learned that like I learned the rest. Besides, you don't need to think that I had to do it every day. Actually, it's a very useful thing to know, because you always have to do things that resemble it very much. A man that takes two whores, that cornholes the first and makes her shit the come into the other's mouth — that sort of thing happens all the time… The other evening at dinner Lili was laughing because you were shocked when she put your prick into her mouth just after it had been in her ass. That's nothing! You see some really bad things when you're a whore, let me tell you!”
She uttered a deep sigh, not thinking of her past, as one might have thought, but because of her lack of eloquence. On her knees in the middle of the bed, sitting on her heels and holding her hands in the hair between her thighs, she said in a despairing voice:
“I don't know how to explain myself. I'm as dumb as a dodo.”
“Again!”
“And also… I don't think you know what a whore is.”
“What don't I know? Tell me. Take your time, get your ideas ordered before you speak.”
“You think that things like that disgust us. No. It's the men rather than the acts.”
“See? You can explain yourself very well.”
“You, for example, I don't have any crush on you, at least I don't think I have. We'll have to see tomorrow. But at least I'm content in your bed. I'm not making a declaration, it's just that, well… put it this way: shit in my mouth if you want. I'd rather you did that ten times than have to suck the prick of some men I can think of. Do you know what happened to Ricette?”
“To Ricette?”
“Didn't she tell you? There's a kid that got out of a boarding school when she was thirteen and a half. She left there with all her virginity and she didn't know nothing from nothing. Oh, she could finger herself and eat another girl out, but that's all she'd learned. Mama fixed it to have her cornholed right away and after that we thought that she was going to beat us all. Eight days afterwards she could take it better than I. She could stick her feet into the air in a hundred and thirty-two positions, did nut-crackers better than mania even, and without a drop of vaseline — without anything in her ass except a little saliva on the end of her finger. Then, of course, the tried her on sucking. But unfortunately the first man that she had in her mouth was an old one who hadn't had a piece in three months. You don't know what that means. You have to be a whore to know. The poor kid threw up everything she had in her stomach and, since that day we've never been able to teach her how to suck. Every time a man comes in her mouth she pukes. It's too bad. She's such a pretty little thing and so warm, so gay, fingering herself everywhere, a girl who only thinks about cocks all day long and who takes it in the ass much better than I.”
“No.”
“Why do you say no? You know it very well.”
“I'm going to reply as simply and frankly as you've spoken. I say no because after being her half an hour you've done everything you could and more to completely disgust me and yet I'm not disgusted. You have nothing but eulogies for everyone but yourself and nothing but injury for your own head. You excuse and adore the mother that prostituted you. And after twelve years of work and sadness you still place yourself under a little sister who is just starting and who refuses everything that you accept. You even retain a tender memory of your 'poor Lucette' who was so 'kind' to you…”
“Shut up!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
“But if I believed you I'd think you a beast, a bitch, a whore-arch-whore, an unspeakably filthy girl not even fit to be kissed on the lips because…”
“No! I'm not fit to be kissed on the lips!” she wailed, hiding her face and crying even harder.
“And everything that I've seen as proof of all this points in the opposite direction. First of all you're one of the prettiest girls I could ever hope to hold and becoming nicer the more I know you. Secondly, you are a woman who, from the time you were eight years old, has always made love for the pleasure of others only, who has sacrificed everything to the interest of her mother and the caprices of men, and who offers herself completely every night, with all her heart, even to me whom she doesn't love.”
“To you whom I don't love?” she said. “Whom I don't love?”
And with her arms around my neck and crying on my shoulder, she sobbed out, “You see! I'm nothing but a beast after all! You haven't understood anything I've been trying to say!”
VI
When she once again took up her narrative after a long interval, she said:
“And now I'll tell you whatever you want to I know, just as if I were confessing. If you want to know names, I'll give you names. If you want frank language you can have that too. If I forget a detail, ask me and you can have it.”
“What are we going to call this history of yours?”
“The story of all the hairs in my ass!” said she, laughing.
“We'll never get finished. There's enough material there to fill a hundred volumes.”
“This will only be a condensation for use in elementary schools!” she cried, laughing even more.
Charlotte had changed completely. She was gay now and it showed all over her face. If I had been her most intimate girlfriend, she couldn't have, told me the story of her life with more frank-ness and abandon.
“While we're on the subject of elementary education, I began mine at the age of ten. Ricette is the only one of us who was properly educated in a girl's hoarding school with a bunch of young society girls who say their prayers every night before going to their room and beating off.
“I went to the public school in my quarter and was one of those who conducted themselves with the most propriety. You can guess why. On leaving the school, there were those who played ball in the fields nearby or engaged in their little bitcheries with the daughter of the man who ran the creamery, a girl who hiked to show her hairs to those who were willing to run their tongues around her asshole. And of course there were the others who played with any boys who would let them jerk off their pricks.
“You can easily realize why I wasn't curious about the pricks and the hairs. And besides, mama was always waiting for me. Classes ended at four o'clock and there were days when I was being cornholed at a quarter after. I barely had time to get back.
“The next year I made a first communion the like of which there are certainly very few. A friend of mine who mounted me an average of three times a week amused himself by making me learn a catechism of his own composition which I had to recite. There were sixteen pages of it and nothing but filth on any of them. The
