Emmanuelle (12 page)

“I love you,” said Emmanuelle.

Bee looked into the depths of her golden eyes, trying to determine what reply she was supposed to give, what kind of truth was expected of her. But Emmanuelle’s grave, almost tragic expression had already given way to a winsome pout. She put her cheek on Bee’s shoulder.

“Are you sure I please you? I mean . . . no, wait . . . listen to me first . . . do I please you as much as, or more than, any of your other friends? Did I give you as much pleasure?”

This time Bee laughed. Emmanuelle took offense. “Why are you making fun of me?” she complained.

“Listen, my little Emmanuelle,” murmured Bee, moving close to her lips, “I’m going to tell you a big secret. I never did this before.”

“You mean the shower, the . . .”

“Everything! I’ve never made love, as you put it, with another woman.”

“Oh, I don’t believe you!” protested Emmanuelle, frowning.

“You have to believe me, because it’s true. And I’m going to admit something else to you. Until this afternoon, until I knew you, I even thought it was a little ridiculous.”

“But . . .” stammered Emmanuelle, taken aback. “Do you mean you never liked it?”

“I never liked or disliked it, since I hadn’t tried it.”

“That’s impossible!” Emmanuelle exclaimed in a way that made Bee laugh.

“Why? Did I seem like such an expert to you?” Bee asked in a tone of almost bantering complicity that was new to Emmanuelle and disconcerted her.

“You didn’t seem surprised.”

“I wasn’t. Because it was you.”

“Oh?” said Emmanuelle. She reflected for a moment, then asked as though she were coming out of a dream, as though she had forgotten everything that had been said before, “Don’t you love me, Bee?”

Bee looked at her without smiling. “I’m very fond of you, yes.”

Emmanuelle had expected something else. She asked another question, less because it was important to her than because she wanted to break the silence. “Did . . . did you like the experience? Are you happy?”

Bee seemed to make up her mind abruptly. “This time,” she said, “
I’m
going to caress
you
.”

Emmanuelle did not have time to answer. Bee firmly took her by the waist, forcing her to lie down, and kissed her sex as though it were her mouth, turning her head sideways so that her own lips would be parallel to those other lips. She put out her tongue and slipped it into the docile furrow as far as she could. All at once Emmanuelle felt herself submerged in both love and sensuality. Surprised by this sudden orgasm before she had been able to try any other caresses, Bee quickly drew back, but when she saw that Emmanuelle was still being shaken by convulsive tremors, she applied her mouth again and scrupulously licked away the juice that was flowing from her. When she raised her head she said, laughing, “I never would have thought that some day I’d like to drink from that spring! Well, as you can see, now I do like it!”

The ringing of the telephone bell broke the spell. It was Marie-Anne, calling to say that she was about to come for a visit. Ordinarily, this would have delighted Emmanuelle, but now it threw her into consternation. It took all of Bee’s good humor to calm her. Neither of them cared to confront Marie-Anne together, so they agreed to see each other again the next day. Bee would come to Emmanuelle’s house in the morning. The chauffeur took her home.

Emmanuelle waited for Marie-Anne without bothering to put on any clothes. The surprising part of it was that she had no thought, at that time, of trying to approach her little friend.

She was incapable of disguising her emotions enough to prevent Marie-Anne’s perspicacity from immediately putting her on the alert.

“What’s happened to you? You look like a girl who’s just been proposed to.”

“I’ve got some big news that will interest you.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“Idiot!

“Tell me, what have you done?”

“I’ve made love with Bee.”

She made this revelation without being at all sure of the effect it would produce. Even so, she did not expect Marie-Anne’s reaction to be so discouraging.

“Is that all?” she asked jadedly. “It didn’t deserve all those preliminaries. What’s so amazing about it?”

“But . . .” said Emmanuelle, thrown off balance. “Bee is fascinating! Wouldn’t you find her to your taste, by any chance?”

Marie-Anne shrugged.

“Poor Emmanuelle, you’re such a half-wit. I really don’t see what glory there can be in going to bed with a girl. You announce it as if it were a great achievement—you make me laugh!”

Emmanuelle was embarrassed. Furthermore, she was beginning to feel guilty. But of what? She tried to see things more clearly.

“What have you got against the fact that Bee and I have made love?”

Marie-Anne’s verdict had a definitive sound. “You don’t make love with a woman.”

“Oh?”

“You make love with a man,” said Marie-Anne. “If you don’t know that yet,” she went on in a tone of impatient authority, “I know someone who can teach it to you, as I’ve already told you. Since words apparently have no effect on you, I’d better turn you over to Mario right away.” She seemed to be mentally consulting a calendar. “Today is the sixteenth. You’re invited to the Embassy on the eighteenth, aren’t you? Good. I’ll introduce him to you at that reception. If you can’t manage to make love with him that same night, it will have to be the next day.”

She could not bear to go on waiting much longer. She was kneeling on an armchair on the balcony of her bedroom, with her elbows on the railing and her chin in her hands, scrutinizing the street through the foliage of the garden. Anxiety made her lips quiver. Would she come? Why was she so late? Maybe she would find an excuse for not coming. Emmanuelle dreaded hearing the telephone ring.

It was she, however, who decided to call, when hours had gone by and waiting had become too painful. It was nearly noon. A man’s voice answered when she dialed the number that Bee had given her. A servant, probably. Only then did she realize that she could not ask about Bee, not only because she was unable to speak the local language, but also because she did not even know her real name. Could she refer to her by a nickname to a servant? She tried it, but could not tell whether or not she had been understood. She gave up.

Since Bee herself had not answered, it might mean that she was on her way. If so, she was going to arrive at any moment. Emmanuelle went back to her observation post. Could there have been an accident? Perhaps Bee had been unable to find her house again, and had been wandering for hours in search of it, through the labyrinth of residential quarters. All the streets looked alike and their names were not only unpronounceable but also written in Thai characters, so it would not be surprising if Bee had gotten lost.

But after all, objected a voice that was stronger than Emmanuelle’s hope, Bee had been living in Bangkok for a year, long enough to learn to find her way around. Emmanuelle was doing fairly well after only two weeks. How could she believe that Bee had lost her way? At most she might be a little delayed. And she should have arrived two hours ago. If she had forgotten where Emmanuelle lived, what was to prevent her from telephoning, or asking her to come and get her?

Why not go to Bee’s house? She immediately realized that she had neglected to ask her for her address. Marie-Anne had said she was the sister of an American naval attaché. That was a little vague. In any case, Emmanuelle was not going to call the American Embassy for information. On second thought, why not? But, once again, what name could she ask for? There might be several naval attachés. And in what language would she ask?

The chauffeur! He had taken Bee home the day before! Emmanuelle sent for him, trembling with impatience. He could not be found anywhere. He had no doubt gone out to lunch. Or to play dice.

How stupid she was! Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? She had only to call Marie-Anne. But as soon as she had the idea she had second thoughts. Could she admit to that greeneyed little girl that she was waiting for Bee, and thus expose herself to more sarcasm? Above all, her wounded pride advised her against letting Marie-Anne guess that Bee had failed to show up, that perhaps she did not share Emmanuelle’s amorous fervor, and that the tender mistress of the day before had already become fickle.

Emmanuelle was now sure that Bee would not come. She would not come later in the afternoon, or the next day. She had yielded, the day before, to an enchantment stronger than she was, but now that she was away from Emmanuelle she had regained her self-control, she did not love her, she did not like women, that game seemed absurd and boring to her, she had judged herself “ridiculous” afterward, to use her own word. Or else she was ashamed of having let herself be drawn into the pleasures of the flesh. Emmanuelle told herself that Bee might have religious beliefs or a concept of morality that had made her repent the debauchery to which she had abandoned herself. After all, Emmanuelle knew nothing about her. She probably did not have a lover, since she lived with her brother, and it was all too certain that she did not have a mistress.

Unless . . . The opposite hypothesis took its turn in Emmanuelle’s mind. Did Bee actually have another mistress? Maybe she had lied the day before. No, that was one thing Emmanuelle could not believe. A lover, then? Had she admitted her “unfaithfulness” to him? Had he made a jealous scene and demanded that she never see her accomplice again? That was it, Emmanuelle was convinced. But she would not let herself be ousted so easily! She would fight to win Bee back; she had the strength of love . . .

A moment later, she felt only weakness and suffering. An unknown bitterness was gradually submerging all the confidence she had left, everything in her that refused to surrender. Bee would never come back, she did not want to see her again. Her reasons didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Emmanuelle’s abandonment and solitude. She loved her so much! She had the feeling that she had come to that country at the end of the world only to find Bee. She had recognized her at first sight as the one she had always been waiting for. She would have gone with her wherever she might have chosen to take her. She would have given up everything for her, if that had been her will. But Bee would ask for nothing. And Emmanuelle would never again, never, offer her what she had been ready to give her. Yes, she would erase her from her memory! She would forget her stained-glass face and her hair of fire, she would forget the muffled voice that had said to her, “I’m very fond of you, yes.”

For the first time since childhood, real tears, long tears, flowed down her face, wetting her lips and salting her tongue, falling on the balustrade of the terrace, which she could not bring herself to leave. She wept as one stretches out one’s arms—vainly facing the opening in the foliage where, in a moment, that evening, perhaps the next day, at any time, whenever she saw fit, Bee would appear and wave to her . . .

That evening, Jean and Christopher took her to the theater. She did not know what she was seeing. Her face declared her grief. Jean did not question her; Christopher, who understood nothing of what was happening, looked almost as sad as Emmanuelle. Later, when she was in Jean’s arms, in their bed, she again wept her fill. She felt somewhat relieved. She was less heartbroken when she confessed her unhappy love to him.

It was his opinion that she was taking the adventure too tragically. In the first place, there was no proof that Bee’s absence had not been due to fortuitous circumstances and that she would not appear the next day with a perfectly valid excuse. If, however, it turned out that she did not want to see Emmanuelle again, it would mean only that she was not worth all the anxiety that Emmanuelle was feeling. It would be better if their affair ended immediately, because it would surely bring her nothing but more serious disappointments and sorrows. In any case, she ought to think of herself as someone whom others ran after, not as someone who ran after others. Jean had never seen Bee, or even heard of her until now, but no matter how beautiful she might be, he was certain that she had only a small fraction of Emmanuelle’s charm and merit. He would therefore not permit Emmanuelle to humiliate herself before Bee. The only answer her faithless mistress deserved, if she thought she could be grudging with her favors, was for Emmanuelle to take her revenge in other arms. She would have no trouble finding partners worthier of her. She owed it to herself to prove it to Bee without delay.

She listened to him docilely. “He’s right,” she thought. Her pain was not really assuaged, but listening to someone else talk to her about consoling herself or taking revenge, she was somewhat distracted from her distress. It already seemed less distinct to her. Perhaps it was only because she was sleepy. She never knew whether her last thought, before losing consciousness, had been of her fugitive mistress or of the other women, still faceless, who would replace her some day.

Jean had told Emmanuelle that none of the dresses she had bought in France was cut low enough to suit him.

“But there’s no woman in Paris who shows her breasts as much as I do!” she had protested, laughing.

“What Paris calls showing one’s breasts is still too straitlaced for Bangkok,” Jean had answered. “All those people must know for certain that you have the most beautiful bosom in the world, and the surest way to convince them of it is to display it in front of their eyes.”