“Let’s say that I have fantasies. Like everyone. But nothing really far-out. Normal ones. More like daydreams.”
“The results of the survey show that 81 percent of women admit having fantasies. Often romantic. The Love Collection.”
“Yes, that’s sort of how it is for me too.”
“They think of another man while making love.”
“It can happen.”
“The hero is strong and mysterious. Franz, Omar, Christopher. No Rogers or Maurices.”
“No Florents either,” she adds, laughing.
“This hero,” I say, “has a square jaw, and thick hair. Unruly head of hair or locks that won’t stay in place,” I specify: “And to describe the way he looks at you?”
“Like steel,” she answers without hesitation.
“Yes, like steel or like a wildcat. In any case, stress hard intensity. He certainly doesn’t wear glasses.”
“No, certainly not. Florent is farsighted. He wears them to read. What about his nose?”
“Aquiline, perhaps.”
“I prefer straight.”
“A straight nose is too ordinary.”
“Maybe, but a really straight nose is quite rare. In any case, that’s what I like.”
“But a pug-nose or a ski slope, never.”
“Perish the thought!” she exclaims.
“The haughty profile of a statue.”
“I can see you have a way with words.”
“Yes, I’m used to clichès,” I say.
I continue:
“His voice could be described as vibrant and his smile sarcastic, sometimes even sardonic. A bitter smirk etched on his tanned face.”
“With rugged features,” she adds. “This man has suffered, life hasn’t been easy for him.”
“Betrayed by a young love.”
“Ignominiously!”
“He became insensitive.”
“Poor man!”
“He has broad shoulders,” she continues. “An athletic build.”
I add: “His muscles strain beneath the effort. Drops of sweat bead at his temples.”
“Silver?”
“No, not silver, definitely not. Black as a raven’s feathers, blond like a stalk of corn beneath the sun. Our hero does not age.”
“A little more gin?”
“A drop. To keep the soda company.”
She raises her glass: “To Franz! To Christopher!”
“When his shirt collar is open,” I say, “you can see the hair on his chest.”
“Virile.”
“He drives a race car.”
“Rides a horse.”
“A thoroughbred.”
“He owns an estate, a ranch.”
“He lassoes animals beneath a burning sun.”
“Or owns vineyards, factories, oil wells. In my dreams, he’s always a rich, powerful man.”
“Do you know that this is the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity of speaking with one of my readers?”
She defends herself: that’s not all she reads. It’s only when she’s tired or restless. Otherwise she reads more serious works, literature, essays on the meaning of life. She suggests we call each other by the familiar tu instead of vous, now that we’ve opened up to each other. I offer her a cigarette. We smoke in silence. Gin and cigarettes are good for the health, for mental health, that is. Because physical health… Cancer lies in wait for us, it seems, insidiously delving its tentacles into our organs. What a tragedy, this description of my poor charred lungs. They were pink at birth, what did I do to them? My soul was white, my heart pure, and my hymen intact, that’s how I was. What did I do to everything given to me in good condition?
But I buy cigarettes low in tar and nicotine: it says so on the pack, along with the warning “cigarettes are addictive,” which comforts me greatly.
The comedy unfolds on screen. I see images of a stairway, a man tearing down it, a woman screaming at a window, a suitcase landing on the sidewalk and opening, spilling open its contents of socks with holes and flowered boxer shorts to passers-by.
“In business, the hero is fair and pitiless,” I say.
“In life, he is fearless,” she adds.
“If he feels betrayed, he may go to a whorehouse or a sordid bar and drink himself into a stupor. He is a strong man with weaknesses.”
“It’s those weaknesses that make him so appealing,” she concludes.
Each reader feels the instinct to train or reform awakening inside her, and each imagines that she will be the one to tame the beast. And at the same time, she nests, a dove at the throat of an eagle, desiring him while at the same time refusing him, pushing him away with frail arms; she wants him to force her, she wants to feel his strength, the brutal embrace. She wants the violence of waves crashing upon the shore, the fury of a hurricane uprooting trees. Every female reader is this woman. Women have the innate ability to train, convert. Their weapons: the sweetness and nobility of their feelings. Potentially, they are doves in love with predators. The same inescapable clichès have been repeated for centuries. The same seductions, the same balms on the same wounds.
“We were speaking of Florent,” I say.
“Oh! Florent… well, to tell the truth, Florent has a flabby stomach, prudently drives a metallic grey Honda Civic and belongs to a bowling league. I also have a flabby stomach, cellulite, don’t have a car, and go bowling with Florent on Saturday nights. Our lives are not spectacular, but I do love him, have learned to love him. We’ve been together six years. I read romance novels when I’m alone and sad. I enter contests to win trips. And when, for the first time in my life, I win one, I have to go away alone… I hope at least the weather will be good.”
“The weather’s always good. Almost always.”
“At least if I can get some sun, it won’t be a total loss. This is my only vacation this year. At the same time, it’s funny, but I have the feeling that if I have a good time, I’ll feel guilty.”
“We always feel guilty, right? The next question?”
“First you have to talk about your own fantasies.”
“The same ones, probably.”
“Translating them, don’t they become banal?”
“They’re always banal.”
I close my eyes for a moment.
“Sometimes the images are violent,” I say.
“Violent?”
“I see myself dominated, bound, chained, subjugated.”
“We’re not responsible for images that come into our heads.”
“They come, in spite of us. Although according to the survey, 7 percent of women admit indulging in this kind of fantasy.”
“I wonder what percentage of men would admit to it… But personally, bound and defenceless, I’d be scared.”
“I’d be scared too, in