31

ALICE

IF YOUR BODY germinates and swells, if your heart pounds like the surf, what could be more normal? I push the rumpled sheet away with my hand; I crush the doubt that assails me under my heel. I seek in vain the heat of his body. I can sense his smell floating through the room; I still have the taste of his sweat in my mouth. I resonate with him with every fiber in my body; my skin spontaneously catches fire at his contact. I curl up with love inside his arms. Hold your breath; repeat without opening your mouth “I'm so happy!” Suddenly I can see the world with the eyes of the heart. Every second is an eternity; I flame with a joy I cannot hide. My head is resting on his lower belly, which goes up and down with the rhythm of his peaceful breathing. The two tips of my breasts are delightfully compressed by his shins. With one hand, I stroke the light moss of his ebony hairs, watching the dark honey of his eyes from the corner of mine. With the other hand, I stroke my sex wet and hot as burning spices. I hold my breath to prolong the exquisite moment.

A metallic sound attracts my attention. It's coming from the outside, from the street perhaps. Really, I have a hard time believing that right now he may be at police headquarters in a tiny room reeking of the urine from a whole gang of delinquents, the vomit of drunks, and the blood of the poor crucified people relegated to the basement. And all that because of a goddamn petition asking for peace and the official recognition of the martyr Mahmoud Harbi. I spend my time running after his absence. I am going stark-raving mad, it couldn't be clearer. In the darkness of my memory, nothing comes knocking. I stroke the cold bed. No, he's right in front of me. He's coming out of the bathroom; he's modest, as usual. He lowers the shade of his eyes. His underpants are tight on him; I look at it insistently, detect an erection. My senses are fooling me; I'm imagining things. No, he is here, in front of me, his eyes fogged over by modesty. He's still astonished by my relaxed immodesty after all these years. Why is he hiding his virility with his right forearm? He slips in at my side; his hairless calf bumps my hip. I breathe in; I want his sex; I want it to find its way back into my humus, and roughly. I read somewhere that the female hyena has an erectile penis and even false testicles. As she's bigger than her mate and dominates him, it seems natural for her to possess the genital attributes of the so-called stronger sex, don't you think? Wait, I just found a hair finer than an eyelash in the bed, and it's black. It must be his; it's the only thing that connects me to him at this moment. I am hot and cold at the same time. I would like to be somewhere else—far away from here, in any case. To live through a night of love with him. The last one?

I can see myself back on a beach in Brittany; I'm fourteen. It's in Saint-Lunaire, to be exact. I am part of a group of adolescent girls in bathing suits. Young girls in bloom with their budding breasts, a spot of sweat under each armpit. All the grace of human clay. Men's eyes are concupiscent, and we drown our fear under an avalanche of giggles. It must be three or four in the afternoon. A sea breeze, an angry word or a ray of the sun, and a shiver runs through our skin, freezes us. Our bathing suits and bras shield from indiscreet glances the ripe fruit, ready to be weighed with a trembling hand. Danger is approaching; it's the silhouette of two men in the prime of life. A slight sensation of dizziness. They draw closer still, talking all the while. Suddenly we get up and run over to our parents, who have remained on the beach.