Little Birds by Anaïs Nin Page A

him to come up with her. They will get into the room and then pull down the shades and lie in the darkness making love.
    "As he presses his pants carefully, meticulously, my friend imagines how he will make love to this woman—and it excites him. He knows how he will grip her. He likes to push his penis in from behind and raise the woman's legs, and then get her to turn just a little so that he can see it moving in and out. He likes the woman to squeeze the base of his penis at the same time; her fingers press harder than the mouth of her sex, and that excites him. She will also touch his balls as he moves, and he will touch her clitoris, because that gives her a double pleasure. He will make her gasp and shake from head to foot and beg for more.
    "By the time he has envisioned all this standing there, half naked, pressing his pants, my friend has a hard on. It is all he wants. He puts away the pants, the iron and the ironing board, and he gets into bed again, lying back and smoking, thinking over this scene until each detail of it is perfect and a drop of semen appears at the head of his penis, which he strokes while he lies smoking and dreaming of pursuing other women.
    "I envy him because he can get so much excitement from thinking all this. He questions me. He wants to know how my women are made, how they behave..."
    Lena laughed. She said, "It's hot. I will take my corset off." And she went into the alcove. When she came back her body looked free and lax. She sat down, crossed her bare legs, her blouse half-open. One of her friends sat where he could see her.
    Another one, a handsome man, stood near me as I was posing and whispered compliments. He said, "I love you because you remind me of Europe—Paris especially. I don't know what there is about Paris, but there is sensuality in the air there. It is contagious. It is such a human city. I don't know whether it is because couples are always kissing in the streets, at tables in the cafés, in the movies, in the parks. They embrace each other so freely. They stop for long complete kisses in the middle of the sidewalk, at the subway entrances. Perhaps it is that, or the softness of the air. I don't know. In the dark, in each doorway at night there is a man and a woman almost melted into one another. The whores watch for you every moment ... they touch you.
    "One day I was standing on a platform bus, looking up idly at the houses. I saw a window open and a man and woman lying on a bed. The woman was sitting over the man.
    "At five o'clock in the afternoon it becomes unbearable. There is love and desire in the air. Everybody is in the streets. The cafés are full. In the movies there are little boxes that are completely dark and curtained off so that you can make love on the floor while the movie is going on and not be seen. It is all so open, so easy. No police to interfere. A woman friend of mine who was followed and annoyed by a man complained to the policeman at the corner. He laughed and said, 'You'll be sorrier the day no man wants to annoy you, won't you? After all, you should be thankful instead of getting angry.' And he would not help her."
    Then my admirer said in a lower voice, "Will you come and have dinner with me and go to the theatre?"
    He became my first real lover. I forgot Reynolds and Stephen. They now seemed like children to me.

The Queen
    The painter sat beside his model mixing colors while he talked about the whores that had stirred him. His shirt was open, showing a strong, smooth neck and a tuft of dark hair; his belt was loosened for comfort, a button was missing from his pants, and his sleeves were turned up for freedom.
    He was saying, "I like a whore best of all because I feel she will never cling to me, never get entangled with me. It makes me feel free. I do not have to make love to her. The only woman who ever gave me the same pleasure was a woman who was incapable of falling in love, who gave herself like a whore, who despised the