Vlad

Chapter 5

On a storm-filled night like this, the boundary between dream and life becomes porous. Asunción sleeps beside me after a round of intense sex, that I urged, all but imposed, aware that I needed to compensate for the mournful mood of my visit to the Count.

I do not intend to repeat what I already said about my love life with Asunción, and in any case discretion restrains my descriptions. But tonight, as if my will — to say nothing of my words — did not belong to me, I surrendered to such intense erotic pleasure that, as the afterglow fades, I find myself wondering if I’ve forgotten anything.

The tried-and-false question that a man puts to a woman—“Was it good for you, baby?”—soon becomes ridiculous. She will always say yes, first with words, and later with a nod, but if, after a while, we still insist on an answer, the yes will be tinged with the hiss of irritation. I now ask myself the same question. Did I satisfy her? Did I give her all the pleasure that she deserves? I know that I was satisfied, sure, but to be so selfish as to consider only my own pleasure would degrade me and would degrade my wife. They say that a woman can fake an orgasm, but that a man cannot. I believe that a man only obtains as much pleasure as he gives to a woman. Asunción, I wonder, does the pleasure that I have and that I give to you, which satisfies me, also fulfill you? Because I cannot ask her again, I must deduce the answer, take the temperature of her skin, detect the rhythm of her moans, gauge the force of her orgasms. I must contemplate her, take reckless pleasure in rediscovering her sex, the depth of the occluded spring of her navel, the maypoles that are her erect nipples in the midst of the sweet, pillowy, maternal softness of her breasts, her long neck out of a Modigliani, her face covered by the bend of her arm, the suggestive angle of her open legs, her pale thighs, her ugly feet, the delicious quivering of her rear-end. . I see and I feel all these things, my beloved Asunción, and since I can no longer ask if it was good for you, I am left with the certainty of my own pleasure and the profound, inexplicable uncertainty of yours. Did she like it? Was it as good for you as it was for me, my one and only? Is there something you desire that you’re not asking me for? Is there a final trace of modesty that prevents you from asking for something kinkier than we’ve done so far, a dirtier word?

Then I think of the palpitating sensation of Asunción’s body. I notice the contrast between her long, black, lustrous, straight hair and the grimace of her genitals, the wild tangle of her short hair, crouched like a panther, indomitable like a bat, that forces me to flee, to penetrate her if only to save myself from her, to lose myself in her in order to conceal with my own pubic hair the wild jungle that grows in between Asunción’s legs, ascending through the mound of Venus and then climbing the ivy along the womb, longing to graze the navel, that fountain of life. .

I get out of bed tonight with the feeling that I forgot to say or to do something. How can I know what Asunción won’t tell me? And how is she going to tell me if she closes her eyes when we finish and is silent? She doesn’t even allow me to get a glimpse of whether she’s really satisfied, or if she desires more — whether for the sake of our shared life, she’s keeping a predilection to herself merely because she knows my shortcomings all too well?

I kiss her again, as if expecting that, from our joined lips, the truth of who we are and what we want might be given voice.

I watch her sleep for a long time in the early morning.

Then, extending my hand under the bed, I feel around for my slippers.

I always leave them there, but now I can’t find them.

I stretch my arm further under the bed. I pat around then retract my hand in horror.

I touch, my hand touches, another hand, a hand under the bed.

The cold hand has long, smooth, and glassy fingernails.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

I sit up on the edge of the bed, and put my feet on the carpet.

I steel myself to begin my daily routine.

Then I feel that frozen hand grab me tight by the ankle, dig the glass fingernails into the soles of my feet. I hear a whisper in a deep voice:

“Sleep. Sleep. It’s still too early. Go back to bed. There’s no rush. Sleep, sleep.”

Then I have the feeling that someone has left the room.