ALICE BEFORE HER PERIOD from ‘Alice’
by Emma BeckerThis is when Emmanuel realises that he is completely taken in by her performance even though she is faking it. The idea that she cannot experience any pleasure was ludicrous, she took such joy in it!
The gurgles that come out of her half-open mouth could not have been feigned. Her entire undulating little body gives off a maddening musky sweat and one can feel a motor throbbing under her skin. With the beat of her sharp heels drumming on his buttocks and the tunnel of love which gapes and then puckers its gums like a newborn baby, Alice holds her breath with her whole being before the final leap where she will finally lose herself… At the very peak of this furore, just as Emmanuel reaches his orgasm staring wide-eyed at her, she opens her eyes. Hers are the blue lying eyes of a slut, rebelliously calm and intelligent, unyielding against her lashes. They tell him in the midst of his pleasure that she hasn’t come, so fuck you. It is like a bucket of icy water as he shoots his load but there is nothing he can do except remind himself that despite her being a manipulative bitch and an idiot, she is nevertheless eminently fuckable. She cannot help that or disguise it, she cannot stop her little breasts from bobbing up and down or her slit from squeaking with every thrust. Whatever you do and however bright you may be Alice, you can be reduced to just a hot hole surrounded by lovely moving parts.
That’s how I can redress the balance, thought Emmanuel as he came, glued to the front of her body, and fuck you too. She was asking to be insulted, this geisha who dared to imitate the exhausted strangled cries of his orgasm. She seems to have picked the very moment when he has given up his last drop, his last sigh, when his anger at having been conned fought weakly against the inexorable pleasure.
Once the curtain has fallen however, the audience may try in vain for an encore. Alice angrily throws off the weight that is crushing her and lies on her back with her eyes wide open. Therein lie all the mysteries of the world, in those eyes that sharpen their ungeometric angles and their devilish curves, immeasurable in any shape or form. She hazards a look from the corner of her eye. Slight scorn at having got away with it hovers there. Because she herself believes in them, she has enough faith in her tricks to believe that they alone could pass for real. What a rotten little pain in the ass she was.
And then the miracle occurs. As she gives a loud and petulant childish sigh which demands consolation, Alice expels some of the hot sperm that Emmanuel had unwillingly given up. Her face takes on a sudden look of surprise! She raises her long Bambi limbs, stretches her hands down, gently spreads herself open, slips a finger into the creamy crevasses and pulls it out again with an irritating sound of a popping cork. Now that Alice has forgotten her tantrum, she is plunged into the serious matter of a trashed playground. She marks it out with a series of rapid suction movements. She is like a lonely little monkey fiddling with herself at the top of a tree, while no-one shows any interest. Emmanuel, who has lost all his strength, feels a fierce anger and a vague hatred of this young woman and her inconsistency rise within him. And at that moment Alice throws herself back on the pillows. She moans as she holds open her rosy pink petals with both hands and utters with perfect but unbearable brutality:
“Oh, finish me off, finish me off!”
An extract from Alice, published in 2015 (Denoël) and translated by Carol Martin-Sperry
