XI
By what renewed chance did I encounter Mauricette a second time on the stairway a few steps from my door? I don't know, but I must admit that I was scarcely surprised. Chance of this sort repeats itself, strangely enough, more often 'than it varies.
Silent and pouting, she turned her head away from me when I attempted to kiss her, but followed me freely into my room — in order to make a scene. I was waiting for it, and I deserved it: I had mounted her first of all; she gave herself to me; she had sent me her mother and her sisters out of a sense of family loyalty; but for two days now I had completely forgotten her-she to whom I owed so much.
I was remorseful at first; in a few minutes I was even more so, for Ricette suddenly seemed to me even prettier than she had before. And I must admit that our remorse usually mirrors the fluctuations of our attractions very faithfully.
What was she going to say? I quickly prepared several responses to reproaches that I anticipated. But if I anticipated a sentence it was always a sure thing that it was not the one that Ricette had on her lips.
“You're going to break my cherry,” she said calmly.
And since my face clearly showed that I was much more stupified than impressed, Ricette did not wait for my reply.
“Ah! That's great! You're a nice one! The day before yesterday I showed you my cherry and today when I offer it to you you don't want it!”
I took her on my knees unprotestingly, but before I could say a word she continued:
“What a character! You always do the opposite of what one wants. For three hours Charlotte pleaded with you to call her whore; it excites her when she's going to come; and you didn't want to; she told us that she never before met such a headache in all her life. But the next day you called mama whore ten times because she doesn't like it. You're a queer one!”
“Not queer at all.”
“Oh yeah? I'm not even finished. You know that mama and Charlotte like to be cornholed. So what do you do? You tell them that the only thing you like is to screw. But when I have my virginity to sell, and I decide to give it to you…”
“You're a dear!”
“Go on! When Charlotte wants it from the rear, you want to give it to her from the front.
And when I offer it to you from the front, you don't want it at all.”'
I sighed deeply. To be obliged to give a long explanation, knowing in advance that it will not be understood, is a terrible situation. I there-fore renounced my best arguments in favor of those which Ricette would understand most easily. “Listen. You're fourteen and a half?”
“Yes, and I should be able to fuck if I can be cornholed.”
“Good. You can screw. But did you know that it will hurt you a lot worse from the front than it ever did from the rear?”
“That's okay,” she said tenderly. “And did you know that it won't make me any happier than you?”
“I care even less about that,” she said gayly. “And then what's going to happen in the evening? Since all four of you are lesbians your mother and sisters are going to see right away that something is missing. Teresa will be furious. We'll all get shot together when she gets wind of it. And what'll we have left after all that? The memory of half an hour in which we had a lot more pain and trouble than pleasure, and all the while I will be regretting that you will be in the process of fucking others. Let's do the contrary. Let's have someone else take your cherry, and then we'll screw as much as you want.”
Mauricette remained thinking. I realized later that she undoubtedly wanted to ask me why it was worth two thousand francs if I didn't want to do it for nothing. But she remained silent, and while she was lost in thought, an idea came to me that ended by winning her over.
“Why don't you give me your other cherry instead?”
“Which one?” she said surprised.
She didn't get it. Since she was still on my lap I pressed her against me and said in a low voice, “Let's see. I won't be lowering you in front of your sisters, but no one will hear us. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, at your age, not to know how to suck yet? Is that it?”
She certainly was! She blushed like a child whose confessor has reproached her for a mortal sin.
“How is it that you're almost fifteen and you still don't know that?”
“Ah! If I told you…”
“Yes, but that was childishness. We have to cure you of all that once and for all. Do you want to try? Would you like to try it once with me — all alone?”
She put her arms around my neck and, hiding her head between my cheek and shoulder, replied, “Yes. I'd like to try it with you.”
Hardly had she accepted my proposition when I regretted having made it. How in the hell, I asked myself, could I refuse this kid's virginity because I didn't want to spatter myself with blood, even when it would have made her very happy, and then accept something that might leave her with just as bad a memory? I'm running the risk of bringing on a nasty case of nausea for her and getting myself drenched with vomit at the same time. That will be gay if it ends like that!
These depressing thoughts slowly disappeared before the more attractive one of giving a lesson in sex to one of Teresa's daughters. And then even the difficulty posed a challenge, a problem, to resolve. I hoped that with me it might not be the same as it had been with the others; no one likes to think that he is one of the herd; and since she had to learn to do it some day anyway, why not make it myself who gave her the taste. Yes, I said the taste. I don't doubt anything any more.
Mauricette returned from the toilet nude, and her first words plucked up my courage.
“I think it will be all right.”
Then she added, unfortunately:
“Where can I spit it?”
“Spit it out? But you don't spit it out! That's the principle of the thing! You mean to say you left a boarding school filled with young girls getting set to go into society and no one told you that you're supposed to swallow it?”
“Oh, yes! They told me and God knows the things they swallowed! There were some there who could have taught things to Lili. But I'm not a society girl, so I'll do it like at a whorehouse. I'll spit.”
“You'll swallow, my dear girl, and right away too. There'll be none of this holding it in your mouth two or three minutes until you've gotten it all. Understand? You were certainly badly brought up in your family.”
Without replying, she threw herself on me and, with her lips against mine, said in a much warmer voice, “You're really going to come in my mouth? Then give me your tongue first… And promise that you'll give it to me again afterwards… And I'll tell you something on my honor: I've never before drunk the come of a man, never! So if I fail you it will be because of that, see? And if I succeed, you don't need to think that I love you! I don't love you at all! Not at all! at all! at all! at all!”
Upon which she gave me the nicest, sweetest kiss I had yet received from that family of diverse personalities. I thought of a verse from Clement Marot, but I didn't have time to dream. Mauricette was already at work.
“Easy! Easy!” I said. “You're taking it like you would a lesbian. We haven't reached the advanced studies yet. Just try to give me a little pleasure at first, and the only person you need worry about is you. I don't have a young nymph abandoning herself to nothing but lewdness before my eyes. Not that at all. I only have a delicious little Ricette who is as pretty and shy as a fawn and who is going to say, 'Is that all there is to it?' when she has finished.”
“But you're stopping me from…”
“Quiet! When you are sucking you don't speak. First principle: don't open your mouth to ask the man how his grandmother's health is. And you're not supposed to laugh either. This is serious.”
