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In trying to satisfy Isabelle, Therese is at her mercy, following her directions for deliver pleasure.
What if someone discovers us, I dreamed aloud.
I cant wait any longer, whimpered Isabelle.
Her hands were clutching at her face.
I fell to my knees before the medallion, I gazed rapt at the shining in her tangle.
I ventured in like a smuggler, my face first.
Isabelle gripped me between scissoring legs.
Im looking; Im caught, I said.
Sex was filling our minds.
Isabelle was spit from head to toe.
An incalculable number of hearts were beating in her belly, against my head.
Yes, yes … slower.
I said slower … higher.
No … lower down.
Almost … almost there …
Yes … yes … Thats almost it …
Faster, faster, faster, she said.
My tongue was searching in the salty darkness, in the sticky darkness, over fragile flesh.
The more I labored, the more mysterious became my efforts.
I hesitated around the pearl.
I tell you thats it.
I was losing it, regaining it.
Yes, yes, moaned Isabelle.
Youre there, youre there, she cried in ecstasy.
just … there … yes, there … just there …
Her anguish, her mastery, her order, her contradictions were confusing me.
You dont want to guide me, I said, alone outside our universe of fantasy.
I spoke to her between the lips of her sex.
Im doing nothing else, she said.
Youre not thinking about what youre doing.
Im thinking too much, I said.
Tears of my sweat are soaking her pubic hair.
Teach me … teach me …
Lift your face, look.
Lying on the steps of the stage, Isabelle sought within herself, found it.
Come closer, look, look.
If you lose it, youll find it again.
Oh, oh … No.
The finger was twisting.
Soon I would spew out the delights of her orgasm.
Her neck tensed, her mind was elsewhere.
Her eyes opened: Isabelle was staring at paradise.
Not me, she said.
She withdrew from herself, clenched her fist.
A minute past 12!
Theyre in the refectory.
Past 12 … Im afraid I might be wrong.
Yes, yes … Go on until tonight if we have to, she said.
I labored so hard that I tasted the flesh of fantasy.
Too near her sex I thought that I wanted to give her what she desired.
My mind was caught up in flesh, my abnegation growing.
When I lacked saliva I would make it.
It will be there, it will always be there, said Isabelle.
Nostalgia and bliss were mixing together.
Thats it, she said.
She fell silent, she kept watch over her sensations.
I received what she was receiving, I was Isabelle.
My effort, my sweat, my rhythm were exciting me.
The pearl wanted what I wanted.
I was discovering the little virile sex that we have.
A eunuch was gathering courage.
Im going to come my love.
So good: Im going to come.
Dont stop, dont stop.
Forever, forever, forever …
I sat up; I wanted to see a prophesy on our bellies.
Dont let me go, dont leave me here, cried Isabelle panicking.
Tell me when, wont you, I said, my face in the furnace of her sex.
Yes, but dont leave me.
I persevered, nothing but a reflection of her.
Through my legs, through my legs …
Yes, my love, yes.
Forever … go on …
In my knees, in my knees …
She was observing the sensation, she was seeking relief.
Its rising, its rising higher.
I was submerged and swept away with her.
There were stigmata in my guts.
Which of course has createdterrible problems.
But it remains central to what Im doing.
Sex is weird, and it has all these stages and surprises.
On one hand its so bodily and so physical.
Then on the other hand, theres this sense of ecstasy, or an increased emotional state.
A good sex scene gets at both, the delicious physicality of sex.
What I love aboutTherese and Isabelleis that it has this heightened, overwritten quality that is really intentional.
And its so hotbecausethis is what it feels like to have a first really erotic experience.
The rest of the scene is really hot, with Isabelle trying to have an orgasm and giving instructions.
Then theres a break where theyre talking, this whole negotiation in the middle.
This pattern reappears throughout the whole book.
Sex scenes need to be good at the sentence level as well.
Sometimes they fail because there isnt a sentence-level engaging with the sensation of sex.
There were stigmata in my guts.
Good sex writing is so exciting to encounter because its a reminder that there is a body in here.
