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" For a long while, and I really don&amp;#039;t wish to say when it was or how many years it lasted, I chose to live in what was perhaps the worst insubordination of our times: I had no sex life. It is true that those years were in large part filled with sensuality, when dreams alone gratified my longings, but what dreams! And if I felt drawn to anything, it was only in my thoughts, but what thoughts\u2026. I realize now what that life was made of: a life in no way insignificant; on the contrary, it was rich, a perfect match for my body and myself. Yet nothing was simple, and these words I write would once have seemed leaden to me, so ashamed was I at times of my singularity, a strangeness worse than difference. Everyone knows that even people who are different have a certain sexuality worthy of the name, things to show for it, defeats they can lay claim to. Whereas we, the loners, an army that does violence only to itself, a small tribe, unavowable and hence unknowable in number, we understand instinctively that speaking out will allow the world to send us deeper into exile\u2014and foster the kind of stupid nonsense people say about whatever they cannot comprehend. They turn us into scapegoats who reassure all others on this point: However problematic their carnal pleasures might be, we offer proof, through our most definite exclusion, that their circumstances are still better than nothing. From this nothing, which was wholesome for me and taught me to draw upon unsuspected resources; from what a caress means to someone who no longer receives or (very likely) bestows any; from the obsession that swells within you and goes to your head; from that meek, submissive crowd I sense is out there, those whom I recognize instantly and for whom I feel such tender affection; from all this, I wanted to make a book. After watching me sail sunnily into the caf\u00E9 in my seven-league boots, my friend Henrietta wanted to know: &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s his name?&amp;quot; As soon as you&amp;#039;ve found yourself, others start trying to guess who the new person is. I know who it was, the one for whom I was leaving everything: the girl I&amp;#039;d been years before. At 13, she looked 16. That girl had been given the gift of reading and would become a writer, but for the moment that was not what preoccupied her: She was dreaming of lust. A man&amp;#039;s open shirt, especially if he had blue eyes, or that place where men have what women have in a different and unseen way\u2014such things unsettled her. In her light summer dress, she was precocious. She assumed that we learn nothing about the senses, such knowledge being innate, and she was an adolescent bursting with impatience, eager to undergo a confirmation quite unlike that dull one in church. There had to be elevations a damn sight more esoteric. In the meantime, she studied herself in the mirror. Given her lack of perfection, she knew she was lucky to be tall and slim. What she didn&amp;#039;t know: One of her peculiarities was the hint of darkness in her eyes. And men recognized that darkness. Men recognized what was askew in that girl. What was his name, that chance encounter, a honey-tongued tourist from Mexico with the curly hair of an archangel? Tus ojos, he said to her: &amp;quot;Your eyes\u2026.&amp;quot; It was in a nightclub that should never have let her in at her age, of course. Not that she would have been allowed out, at that point. They&amp;#039;d seen each other again the next day; he wanted to go to a museum. This interest in culture made her feel safer, and her chatter positively sparkled. He had to swing by his hotel, but she didn&amp;#039;t mind seeing a palace. It was near the famous church La Madeleine. He took off some of his clothes, just for fun. That guy&amp;#039;s perfect sweet-as-sugar torso\u2026. He liked the Impressionists, and he was handsome. Fascinated, she was hopeful. He&amp;#039;d taken off the rest of his clothes: He was naked, and the gaiety reached its zenith. This really was what she&amp;#039;d always had in mind. It was fabulous. No need to worry about it anymore: One day, everything would happen. At 13, ecstatic at such favorable signs, she wanted to leave it at that. To rest secure in that knowledge for a few years. She started to get out of the bed. The guy grabbed her wrist. She said she wanted to leave. He laughed in a stupid, bad-boy way. He was 20 years older than she was. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really 13,&amp;quot; she protested. For all her intelligence, she was ridiculously naive. Because\u2014what was she thinking? That a man at such a pitch of desire, a stranger who would go back home to his own country the next day, would pause for a discussion? When was I ever happier than during those first few months of respite? I took lavender milk baths. The Japanese sell a perfumed powder that turns the water white. Pouring the contents of the sachet into the bathtub, reveling in that unctuous liquid and then sinking into it, I felt as if some divinity were rejoicing for me. Until then, water had been only a useful element, like the showers, for example, into which I rushed to cleanse myself of a presence after having let myself be caught. The soap attenuated the repercussions of every &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;later&amp;quot; left unspoken, as well as my constantly compromised fastidiousness. I&amp;#039;d spend an inordinate time in the little shower stall, leaning back against the tiles, from exhaustion. But now, except for my head, I was immersed in milk. My body, relaxed, would agree to float, and its most meaningful parts would emerge from the opaline water, my breasts upthrust like buoys signaling a human presence along a seacoast. I was beneath these beacons, a living being. And soon the d\u00E9tente would continue as the other important part of my anatomy would rise, no longer mistreated as before. The palm of a sorcerer had slid beneath my hips to gently raise me. Even today, on an anatomical drawing I could still trace with my finger the circuit of freedom flowing through my body in those limpid moments. I was confident. I rejoiced at being out of all danger. They weren&amp;#039;t going to get me. They weren&amp;#039;t going to get anything from me. If levitating is something real, then that&amp;#039;s what it was. One afternoon in Paris, a movie. I went to the Lucernaire three times a week. There were never more than 10 of us in the theater, and that day I was alone. I turned around to wave in friendly solidarity to the unseen projectionist. The film was Sydney Pollack&amp;#039;s Three Days of the Condor. Robert Redford leaves his office (a clandestine CIA agency) to go get sandwiches. When he returns in his navy blue peacoat with everyone&amp;#039;s lunch, his colleagues are dead, riddled with bullets. Redford was supposed to have been murdered with the others; his continued existence now poses a threat, so he must go into hiding. In the final freeze-frame, he turns to look back over his shoulder. There are a thousand ways to appropriate a film for yourself, but are women who can love a real man available enough to get to know Robert Redford? I know they take a little away from a film, get some use out of it. That&amp;#039;s not much. For those women it&amp;#039;s only a film. Because absent the absolute nakedness of the viewer, Robert Redford stays put. You have to be at the Lucernaire, with the double retrenchment of being in the theater and in your body (hands lying open and empty at your sides), with your imperative need to dream, you who now spend time exclusively with beauty, you for whom the film is truly a lucernaire (a lamp-lighting ceremony to dispel darkness), you who can make love without moving, you who (let me remind you) are now a field poppy and so need very little water to bloom, you who are seeking nourishment from Robert Redford to water yourself\u2014well, Robert Redford? You he can see. If this actor were to come over to talk to me at a party, I&amp;#039;d be wary. I&amp;#039;d wonder what he wanted from me. I believe, yes, I believe I&amp;#039;d even be frightened. But I was in a movie theater thousands of miles from the real body of Robert Redford. Only the essence of him remained. Disembodied, the both of us, we were resurrected in the heavenly precincts of the Lucernaire. Redford could have carried me off in the folds of his craggy complexion. That rock face of his had places that made me think, If this goes any further, that&amp;#039;s where I&amp;#039;ll grab a handhold. You must believe in miracles. At the end of the film, when I was standing up in the dark as the credits were rolling, Robert Redford placed a hand on my shoulder to offer me a fourth Day of the Condor. It was only logical. He had received my message. I draped one arm around his handsome neck saved from the killers and figured that if the projectionist was watching, he&amp;#039;d think I was consulting my watch. Gordon had the apartment next to mine. Always in a suit. In finance. The concierge and I had both been surprised that a bourgeois couple had chosen to live in an artist&amp;#039;s studio. On Palm Sunday, his wife, a petite woman made nondescript by a hunting jacket, hung a green branch on their door. They had three grown children who no longer lived with them but visited on Sundays, sullen and sinister. I never heard laughter, even though I listened. The aroma of roast leg of lamb reawakened my nostalgia for a family. After the fine meal, the children left, racing down the staircase. Escaping, basically. One night, coming home after a movie, I found Gordon in front of his door, sitting on the floor in his pajamas, next to his doormat. He had stripped the leaves from the green branch, which had dried out months ago, and crumbled them to powder. Not a happy camper. I figured he&amp;#039;d forgotten his keys and that the door had slammed shut behind him, perhaps when he&amp;#039;d taken down the garbage. The absurdity of his predicament had shaken Gordon&amp;#039;s habitual reserve, and I easily persuaded him to come inside my apartment with me. You think people will have some scruples about unburdening themselves, but not at all. That evening, Gordon had tried to approach his wife. They had separate bedrooms. So what Gordon had done was: He had knocked on the matriarchal door, he had entered, he had lain down on the bed next to the female body, tenderly but without asking any permission. She had shrieked loudly, which I would have heard if I&amp;#039;d been home. Keyed up on account of the shrieking and because something was finally happening, Gordon had pressed his case, namely by pressing his head in between his wife&amp;#039;s thighs and grunting. She had advised him not to be an idiot and had launched a kick at random that connected with Gordon&amp;#039;s shin. &amp;quot;Since that&amp;#039;s the way it is,&amp;quot; Gordon had cried bitterly, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m leaving!&amp;quot; She had leapt briskly from the bed before he did, opened the front door, and ordered him out. Although his wife&amp;#039;s nightgown had been hanging open, on his honor Gordon had had no other choice but to leave. He was distressed at having imposed his disaster on me and wanted to leave. But really, he couldn&amp;#039;t just keep leaving. I made him sit back down on my sofa. For the past five years his wife had refused to let him touch her. She had pointed out to him that the male body is repulsive. That last time, five years earlier, he standing naked before her, they had examined the question together. He&amp;#039;d been forced to admit the weirdness of the masculine physique. She had been specific: Gordon&amp;#039;s body wasn&amp;#039;t more disgraceful than any other man&amp;#039;s, but it had the misfortune of being closer, that&amp;#039;s all. These revelations had mortified Gordon, who had already endured being abandoned as a child by his mother to the custody of his father. A psychoanalyst to whom Gordon had gone for guidance had led Gordon to understand, whether through masculine solidarity or Freudianism, that too much was too much, and that he could remake his life. After an endless year of famine and introspection, Gordon had suggested a separation to his wife. She had refused. Instead, she had organized a daily routine from which all contact between them was banished. After five years, she touched Gordon only to remove, say, a loose thread from his suit. Sometimes he stuck one on, on purpose. During the day, at the beach, I would doze under a cane awning. In the evening I&amp;#039;d go lie down on a rustic table in the center of a white tent. Life outside went on with its unreal sounds, while I was naked. Before massaging me, Pajane would dribble lukewarm oil onto the top of my skull, and that oil would flow down the back of my neck to my shoulders. With his free hand (the other held the cruet), Pajane would help the oil along until it reached the wooden table. His touch proved to me that there is a shape to our bodies. Instead of sketching out some music in the air, the contact taught me my boundaries, my contours. A woman in clinging silk jersey understands what that dress contains. Dreamily, she verifies herself. Here the miraculous garment was the hand. My oily head fell against Pajane&amp;#039;s impeccable white kurta. When I was loath to soil it, he was the one who pressed my head back against him. He pulled on my spine as if to unkink it forever. A little faun destined for delight had been crouched waiting inside me, having hidden under a chest of drawers during my great invasions. Now the faun was coming back to life.  To indicate that I should lie down, Pajane touched two fingertips to the end of the board, by an invisible pillow. The two fingers on my back or my belly: I was to turn over. He slathered me with so much oil that when he massaged me afterward, the most prominent parts of my body were sliding around on the table, and my feet would bump into his pelvis. I didn&amp;#039;t dare open my eyes except when I was on my stomach, with my face fitted into a special hollow on the board that ensured the correct alignment of the cervical vertebrae. In that position I could see Pajane&amp;#039;s perfect feet, the pink nails, the white pants rolled up around his exquisite ankles. I decided that I should always have preferred handsome men. I did not admire these marvels for long, because Pajane would grab my skin\u2014I was an obedient greyhound rather than a Dalmatian bitch\u2014and I would go back under my eyelids. Or he would stand facing me as I sat on the table and pull me tight against the kurta while my legs hung on either side of his hips. Grasping each of my shoulder blades with one hand, he would gently move them apart. I could feel my back open and crows fly out. And he would let me go. In a stupor, I would try to make out his face and encounter only bristling eyelashes edged with light. My single thought each morning was to get to the masseurs&amp;#039; tent early enough to reserve Pajane. I was becoming more supple. In the water, my new, telescopic neck stretched out with the slightest swim stroke. A single movement propelled me five yards forward. During my stay in Goa, I never heard him say a single word, even in his own language with the other masseurs. Until the last evening, when I told him in English\u2014on the off chance\u2014that I was leaving the next day. He had his back to me; he turned around. That oil-soaked kurta\u2026. Slender, with black eyes, he had the teeth of a happy man. In two words, a sage can teach you for the rest of your days. He spoke in English. &amp;quot;Necessity body.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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