The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa Page B

His left hand had to be under Justiniana’s right shoulder, his face turned more this way. “Lay your left hand on her back, Foncho, let it rest on her. Yes, now you’re getting it.”
    She sat on the sofa and looked at them, without seeing them, lost in her own thoughts, astonished at what was happening. He was Rigoberto. Improved and corrected. Corrected and improved. She felt impetuous, and changed. The two of them lay still, playing the game with utter gravity. Nobody was smiling. The pose revealed only one of Justiniana’s eyes, and it no longer flashed mischievously but was like a pool, languid and indolent. Was she excited too? Yes, yes, like her, even more so. Only Fonchito—eyes closed to heighten the resemblance to Schiele’s faceless child—seemed to play the game openly, with no hidden agenda. The atmosphere had thickened, the sounds from the Olivar were muffled, time had slipped away, and the little house, San Isidro, the world, had evaporated.
    “We have time for one more,” Fonchito said at last as he got to his feet. “Now you two. What do you think? It can only be—turn the page, Stepmamá—it can only be that one, it’s perfect. Two Girls Lying in an Embrace . Don’t move, Justita. Just turn a little, that’s it. Lie down beside her, Stepmamá, hover over her, your back to me. Your hand like this, under her hip. You’re the one in the yellow dress, Justita. Imitate her. This arm here, and your right arm, just pass it under my stepmamá’s legs. Bend a little, let your knee brush against Justita’s shoulder. Raise this hand, put it on my stepmamá’s leg, spread your fingers. That’s it, that’s it. Perfect!”
    They were silent, obedient, bending, straightening, turning on their sides, extending or withdrawing legs, arms, necks. Docile? Bewitched? Enchanted? “Defeated,” Doña Lucrecia admitted to herself. Her head was resting on her maid’s thighs and her right hand held her waist. From time to time she pressed it to feel the moist heat emanating from her, and in response to that pressure, Justiniana’s fingers clasped her right thigh and made her feel what she was feeling. She was aroused. Of course she was; that intense, heavy, disturbing odor, where would it come from if not Justiniana’s body? Or did it come from her? How had they ever gone so far? What had happened? How, without realizing it—or realizing it, perhaps—had the boy made them play this game? Now she didn’t care. She felt content to be in the picture. To be with her, her body, Justiniana, in this situation. She heard Fonchito leaving.
    “What a shame I have to go. Everything was so nice. But you two go on playing. Thanks for the present, Stepmamá.”
    She heard him open the door, she heard him close it. He had gone. He had left them alone, lying entwined, abandoned, lost in a fantasy of his favorite painter.
    The Rebellion of the Clitorises
    I understand, Señora, that the feminist sect which you represent has declared a war of the sexes, and that the philosophy of your movement is based on the conviction that the clitoris is morally, physically, culturally, and erotically superior to the penis, ovaries more noble than testicles.
    I grant that your theses are defensible. I do not attempt to make the slightest objection to them. My sympathies for feminism are profound, though subordinate to my love for individual freedom and human rights, which means that those sympathies are bounded by limits I should specify so that my subsequent remarks make sense. Speaking generally, and beginning with the most obvious point, I will state that I am in favor of eliminating every legal obstacle to a woman’s accepting the same responsibilities as a man, in favor of the intellectual and moral struggle against the prejudices upon which restrictions to women’s rights rest, and let me add, among these I believe the most important, for women as well as men, is not the right to employment, education, health, and so forth, but