He's coming.
Shall we try it?
Look at me, Paul. Stand taller, be brittle, edgy.
A matador relates to death, to anxiety, so be edgy.
Clara, look down, be a bit submissive.
Not too much.
A bit submissive to the man.
At three, you look at me. It's all in your look.
At three, raise yourself on your toes and look at me.
One, two, three.
Excellent.
You think I don't suffer, too?
You think I enjoy seeing you unhappy?
I told you, I'm always like this.
With other girls it lasted a week, then for 6 months we did nothing.
Really?
With you, it's lasted 3 months.
It's all we've done, night and day.
Don't exaggerate.
We never did it all night.
Come on. We'd make love twice in a row.
I don't think so.
In fact, I think it never happened.
Anyway, now I can cheat on you. But you can't.
No getting a hard-on for another girl, if you don't for me.
Have you cheated on me?
No.
You're lucky. You won't make me give up sex.
I haven't cheated on you, but I should have.
What does that mean?
Look me in the eyes.
- Have you ever? - Absolutely not.
It means I'm too dumb.
You don't deserve my faithfulness.
Know why you drink?
So you can collapse in bed like a log.
You only love me when there's a table between us.
Since we met, we've been together every night.
I've eaten opposite you.
I'm never bored.
Right.
You like me when there's a table between us.
It's insane. I sleep over with a guy who doesn't touch me.
You haven't in ages.
- We discussed that. - You swore you'd do something.
- Wait. - For the end of the world?
You have to wait. Maybe 3 more months.
There's more to life than that.
What are you doing? You splitting?
No.
It's not that serious.
Yes, it is.
An invisible cage, heavy, leaden, descends on me...
a tacit interdiction.
Take off your T-shirt.
I don't want to sleep with a cotton bag, I hate cotton.
No. Get undressed and come to bed.
Why won't you take it off?
You know I can't stand it, I feel it against me.
I'll take it off, but not my shorts.
They keep my balls warm.
It's nothing to do with you.
I never thought we'd be together every night.
Anyway, that's how it is.
It's my fault, too.
I thought you'd have other things to do than see me every night.
We'd not meet for 2 weeks, a month.
You'd let me disappear.
No.
Not without staying in touch.
Not if you're in Paris when I am.
You don't trust me.
I'll leave...
If you want, I'll leave.
You'll never see me again.
See how you are?
We can't even talk.
Get into bed.
Take that off.
I said it's nothing to do with you.
I've always slept like this.
It is to do with me.
It's because you hate me.
Stop it.
I told you never to try that.
You're just postponing things.
- But you're hard. - Stop, or it's all over between us.
It means you can.
Doesn't interest me.
Be nice, why won't you?
If you couldn't get it up, I'd understand.
You've decided to stop making love, just when I...
Watch out.
I'll want to kill myself. I've never done this with a guy.
I never touched them. Never.
It must be important to you, since you harp on it.
Even if you don't want to, if you can't, I don't get it.
Then caress me. If you can't get any pleasure give me some.
Women come a lot more than men.
If I did that, I'd despise you.
I couldn't love you any more.
You despise me because I'm a woman.
You don't love me one bit.
I disgust you, I appall you.
You think I'm the lowest.
Stop it.
Come to bed.
Why can I only love him or hate him?
Why can't I feel indifferent?
Yet my head is clear.
A man who can't love me physically...
is a pit of misfortune,
a gulf of suffering.
They say that a man who screws a woman, honors her.
The expression is worth noting: It's true.
Paul dishonors me.
Do you mind?
On the contrary.
Just came for a nightcap?
I just got out of bed.
It's true, I just got dressed.
I can't stand sleeping, so I got up.
I don't give a damn about time, I'm never tired.
I hate people who feign fatigue, who have endless pretexts.
You agree?
It's because they lack passion.
You live alone?
No, I have a husband.
I told him I had a husband...
so he'd know I'm not free.
Because I'm not free.
He'll have to realize it's adultery.
He's asleep, sleeping doesn't bother him at all.
He has to get up early tomorrow.
He has a business appointment in Deauville at noon.
Do you have a girlfriend?
She died in a car accident.
I haven't made love in 4 months.
Maybe all men are like that.
My husband's nice, but he's not interested in sex.
The first moves are what I like best.
It's delicious.
I can never stop myself from yielding.
It surprises me each time.
I watch myself giving in as if it wasn't me.
Frankly...
I wanted another taste of that miracle, a stranger making love to you.
It's a childish desire...
a pure desire.
Give me a blow job.
Not now.
This evening or tomorrow.
Give me your phone number?
- You don't feel like it? - To blow you?
Not really.
It's not my specialty.
I don't like to start with that...
I'd rather resume that way, if you see what I mean.
But going to a hotel, I'm dying to do that.
Now I have to split, in fact, right away.
Don't want to go to a hotel?
I have to go to work.
And I have to return the car.
It's not mine.
Will you call me?
Sorry I'm late.
Doesn't matter.
I took attendance.
Take out your grammar notebooks, and write today's date.
Last week we did the present tense of the verb "to be".
"I am, you are, he is..."
"we are, you are, they are."
Today, we'll do, "to have".
"To have" isn't like "to be".
One can "be" without "having".
One can "have" without "being".
I've been "had".
I've really been had.
I wish you were pregnant.
Fat chance of that.
Why? It could happen.
How? By the Holy Ghost? You dreaming?
There's no way, ever since I stopped the pill.
You hate details, but there are dates.
If you hardly ever do it, and can't on the right days, it'll never happen.
That's what depresses me.
That's different.
If you say it's chore time, I'll do it.
- Really? - Yes.
That'd change everything.
If we had a child, it'd make sense to be together.
It's because you've lost faith.
It'll come back.
It's like the Circean myth.
You want to know the future, and the past.
You even mess with the present, you force it.
You've lost faith, so everything collapses.
What if I left?
And didn't phone for 2 weeks or a month?
Or 6 months?
Would we be through?
Depends.
If you go to the North Pole, or to a desert, maybe.
But if you see a phone and always say...
"I won't call that dumb girl"...
and hang out in every bar in my neighborhood,
I'd say we've broken up.
I talk of freedom, you talk of bars.
It's statistics.
A guy needs to remake the world with his pals in a bar,
or he dies.
You know I don't cheat on you.
Maybe I'd rather you did, and also screwed me.
Anyway, I can cheat on you, but you can't on me.
You already done it?
You talk about it a lot.
No.
But you deserve to think I have.
Ok.
Tomorrow night, I'm dining with Ashley.
You can come, but you know what I'd prefer.
That I didn't come.
I know I should let him live...
but I need to cling to him like a leech.
Because I'm madly in love with him.
What he calls breathing, suffocates me.
I never asked to be free.
And I don't want him to be, either.
I'm a real stickler for absolutes.
And I think I'm right.
But when I apply it to life...
it really makes me go schizo.
He dances because he wants to seduce.
He wants to seduce because he wants to conquer.
He wants to conquer because he's a man.
Now what is it?
You make a scene 'cause I dance with a girl?
Not a girl, some bimbo.
Who gives a fuck about her?
Then don't give a fuck.
I won't have a kid with anyone else.
You insist I wear one?
I haven't screwed in 6 months, I don't have AIDS.
You're getting better.
You seem to enjoy it.
You're almost triumphant.
You want me to watch you slip on your condom.
At first you hid.
- Think so? - I do.
I didn't dare look, I don't like looking at a cock.
Once they've been used, they're revolting.
Not very pretty.
They are rather disgusting.
It's like a tampax, to screw, you take it out discreetly,
hide it under the bed, so the guy's not turned off.
Guys are easily disgusted.
Later, you have to retrieve it.
I quite like disgusting things.
Know why most guys can't use a condom?
Their cocks aren't hard enough.
As they say, the rubber, rubs them out.
I wouldn't know, I don't sleep with guys.
It's true, they go limp all the time.
Because they're not really horny.
It's like in porn flicks...
girls stuff limp cocks in their mouths.
They have to give blow jobs because they're not really wanted.
A guy should take you without a word
but he shouldn't bug you with his inadequacy.
Sometimes a blow job is fine.
It's ok when the guy could screw you, but won't.
That's the Tantalus torture.
It makes you admit you can do that...
or even worse...
as long as he ends up screwing you.
Most guys have cocks that are short, thin...
and pointed.
Pointed?
Like a dog's cock.
I hate that. Length isn't everything.
There's the base.
A thin cock isn't noble.
Shall I stick it in your ass?
Not yet.
Screw me some more, I haven't had enough.
My boyfriend doesn't screw me.
How can you love a guy who doesn't screw you?
I don't like the guys who screw me.
I hate them.
I don't want to see the men who screw me.
Or look at them.
I want to be a hole, a pit...
the more gaping, the more obscene it is,
the more it's me, my intimacy,
the more I surrender.
It's metaphysical.
I disappear in proportion to the cock taking me.
I hollow myself.
That's my purity.
You like your back being tickled?
No, I don't like tenderness.
Or to be kissed on the mouth. I couldn't stand that.
I don't care who stuffs my cunt.
But I can't kiss someone I don't love.
It's too intimate.
But I kissed Paolo, I felt like it.
When I kissed him, I stopped thinking about Paul.
So I decided to stop seeing him.
It was a question of integrity.
What are you doing?
Nothing. I have a class.
You like my cock?
- I like its smell. - You're disgusting.
No, it smells good.
I like it that it's not too large.
It fits in my hand and fits in my mouth.
Why do you like it?
It's mine.
I don't know...
It's like a bird.
Feels like I have a bird in my hand.
You see when you move like that...
It's as if it wanted to fly away.
But it doesn't. That's touching.
You mind that we don't go all the way?
What I mind is you won't let me caress you.
I really resent that.
I do let you caress me.
But not all the way.
Don't worry, I don't come either.
DICTATION
"Winter Months."
"Everyone had settled...
for a life...
that was dull...
and orderly."
Period.
"Then suddenly...
comma."
"Light...
burst forth...
once again."
Period.
"Spring...
had come."
Exclamation point.
I know, my spelling is awful.
How did I pass my teaching exams?
Or get my driver's license. I can't parallel park.
That's less serious.
You're not behind me when I'm double parked.
I think I'm dis... lex...
Dis... lexic.
Like with math, my reasoning was fine,
but I couldn't learn multiplication tables.
That's a problem.
Nice place.
Surprises you, eh?
It's small, but it has everything.
Girls want to see what they've seen on TV.
Sliding Japanese screens are in, so that's what I have.
Jacuzzis are in, so I've got one.
For a small place, it has everything, it's a theater.
It's like a stage where I can rehearse.
I'm a high class bum who's not handsome,
yet I've had over 10,000 women.
Why me?
Because you have to talk to them.
Nobody bothers to talk to women anymore.
I talk, they listen, they're in the palm of my hand.
Then I put my hand in the right place without asking.
So it goes.
Somebody has to get things going.
The only way to be loved by women...
is via rape.
Women yield to a stranger,
but play hard to get with a wretch who loves them.
So it goes.
But do they want to be respected?
In a sense, yes.
But respect is in the nature of things,
since they're up for grabs, they want to be taken.
I've had 10,000 women, I don't remember them all,
but I kept their names, their age, and the circumstances.
Their cunts.
No two are alike, they're as memorable as faces.
But take ten men, cut off their cocks,
put them in a basket, no one can tell his own.
I did a radio show.
They wanted proof of my statistics.
Yes, indeed.
They counted them.
Dr. Weil, a psychiatrist and sexologist,
knows a true Casanova, a super Don Juan,
a prince among seducers.
Why does she call me a prince of seducers?
It's absurd.
I never seduced anyone, any woman.
I know I'm not very handsome,
I may even be revolting,
but the fact is, I've had 10,000 women,
several per day.
I've been a seducer in the sense of "se aductere"...
to draw to one's self.
We checked him out, he kept a record of his conquests.
I've got something that will interest you.
I bought it, knowing some day I'd make you read it.
Here it is.
Read me this sentence.
One shouldn't lend books, women should read to us,
so we know they've read it.
I hate reading.
Read it. Women must read to us.
"As the Mother begets the Son, the Son begets the Mother.
His act is the creative counterpoint of the process.
By begetting the Mother, he purifies her.
He purifies her and himself, uno acto.
He turns the "Babylonian Whore" into a Virgin."
You're making me shy. What's come over me?
Yet you're the one who...
I'm fine.
You see?
I see nothing.
You're posing.
I'm being myself.
This kind of embarrassment...
I'm perfectly natural.
Is desire. It's part of the game.
If we didn't lack words when it comes to acts,
we'd instantly tell them, "Hands off".
That's what this is, a trivial relationship,
a very shameful one.
Why do men who disgust us understand us better
than those who appeal to us?
There's a hole in your spelling, yet, you're a teacher.
Yes, a hole.
There.
You're amazed that I'm fingering your pussy,
but it's me doing it.
I'm not aroused yet, but you are...
you're amazed it's me.
So it goes.
Beautiful women get taken by ugly men.
That's a well-kept secret.
There has to be action,
the action isn't between man and woman, that's too simple.
It's between beauty and ugliness.
Beauty feeds on degradation, communes with it.
That's where I come in, I make the most of it.
So it goes. Don't blame me.
Shall I dominate you?
Open your eyes.
Shall I gag you?
It implies going further...
than it's reasonable for a woman to accept.
She may have to go beyond what she agreed to.
You don't yearn for what you can't accept.
Physical love is triviality clashing with the divine.
It's strange...
obscenity doesn't bother women.
Is it too painful?
Take it off.
I can't stand it.
I didn't realize.
You should've told me. I thought I could go far with you.
I can tie you up less severely, or we can make love normally.
I'm ok.
It's me.
My problem is...
You know...
nobody ever tied me up before, I never did it.
Really, you never did?
I always wanted to.
We'll resume. I won't tie you as tightly.
No.
It's fine.
It has to be this way.
Really? Was it good for you, too?
For me it was very beautiful, truly beautiful.
I want to give you pleasure. When you cry, I panic.
I feel I've done something wrong.
No, it's fine.
At first...
you feel your hands going numb, you think you can stand it...
then suddenly it's unbearable.
A form of dying...
a galloping death.
You think your hands will fall off...
you slowly turn into dead flesh...
and then...
it has to stop at once, it can't last a second more.
I was afraid you couldn't hear because of the gag.
It's really freaky.
But you liked the gag?
I don't like having to say things.
When I got home, Paul wasn't there.
That made my world fall apart.
It has nothing to do with what I did.
What's done is done. It's behind me.
My head is very clear.
It's all I can be...
in my head.
I feel my body doesn't belong to me.
It's an anonymous appendix.
In my head, there's Paul.
He could have reconciled me with my body.
But he didn't want to do that.
Because I don't like my body, I was an easy prey.
I mean, a victim.
Anyway, women are the victims men need for atonement.
I always masturbate with my legs closed,
I rarely part them.
I can offer myself to myself, rape myself.
It's mildly satisfying, a bit nauseating,
but it's proof I don't need a man if I have to resort to this.
It was painful for me to be on his bed.
A pain you could call feeling like lost luggage.
The more time went by, the less I could bear it.
I had to cast myself out like a wreck.
In the basic meaning of the word, up for grabs.
The only thing I told myself, like a two-bit equation,
was that if I'd cheated on him, and still only loved him,
it didn't much matter if he'd cheated on me.
But he hadn't. It was worse, he was thrilled to be alone.
Love between men and women,
let it be said again, is a devious conflict.
There...
I win if I'm last to get home.
I know it, I'll have an edge on him.
$20, just to eat you.
That's my dream.
To know that for some guy, I'm just a pussy he wants to stuff,
without sentimental bullshit.
Just raw desire.
To be taken by a guy, anyone, a nobody,
a bum with whom you wallow for the joy of wallowing,
for the dishonor, the discredit,
that's pleasure to a girl.
Turn over, show me your rosebud.
Pay me.
You've got no choice, bitch.
- You like me? - Slut.
Whore, bitch. I reamed you good.
I'm not ashamed, asshole.
Is nymphomania destroying yourself...
because you choose a man who doesn't love you?
I don't want to sleep with men.
I want to be opened up all the way,
when you can see that the mystique is a load of innards,
the woman is dead.
Maybe I really want to meet "Jack the Ripper".
He'd certainly dissect a woman like me.
Once again I hung around an hour so I'd be the last to get home.
That's proof that women are capable of more love than men.
Much more love.
He's waiting for me, too.
When I get home after him, it's not as easy.
The little guy's edgy.
- I just got home. - Me, too.
So I see.
But I just got home, too.
Sure, you wouldn't watch the idiot box for an hour.
"A Love Affair deals with an older man's obsession
for a young prostitute".
So he won't screw me.
"Maybe due to his education,
women always seemed strange to him.
He preferred the company of his friends.
Women were from another world, somewhat superior."
My cunt is swollen and moist, I can hold out forever.
He won't beat me down this way.
When he wants an evening without me...
I make the most of it.
I get tied up.
It's his fault.
Shall I dominate you?
Want to tie me up? Today, you choose.
I don't want to do anything.
You like being tied up?
Yes, but not my elbows.
Last time, my hands were numb for 2 weeks.
A month ago, one elbow still felt weird.
That's abnormal. You've got bad circulation.
One day in Cannes, I picked up Grace Delly.
If I'd known it was her, I wouldn't have dared.
But she liked me and made a date to meet at my place.
She rang, blonde, impeccable hairdo,
in a hound's tooth tailleur.
A bitch for a hound dog.
I screw her, love in the afternoon, she leaves in fine spirits.
Next day I see her, I was with a friend.
I tell him I screwed that woman.
He says, "You screwed Grace Delly"?
I looked at him, I didn't know.
See? I'm not handsome...
or wealthy or attractive,
but I screwed her.
Later, I went over to her...
we have a drink...
and I ask her, why?
"Why didn't you say you were Grace Delly?"
"Would you have behaved the same way?"
I guess not.
You don't act the same way with Grace Delly,
you wear kid gloves.
What a pity, that was nice.
Wait.
This doesn't hurt.
Too bad, I don't have two.
Doesn't matter...
I'll do it this way.
There, raise your ass.
I'll lift your skirt.
Like that.
I'll spread your legs, ok?
I think you like it when I spread your legs.
- Wait. - I love it.
There.
That's nice.
Now I'll put this on.
Wait.
Help me.
That's beautiful.
You're lovely like that.
It's beautiful.
Now I'll gag you.
I enjoyed it so much, I grew attached to Robert.
Tying me up without tying me down, was the secret of his ritual.
After these sessions I wasn't gloomy, we giggled.
We partied and overate.
The guy was flat broke.
So she said to him...
you want more caviar?
More caviar?
Waiter, please.
More caviar.
And vodka.
I love to tipple.
But I never get drunk, or what they call drunk.
Can we have some more vodka, too?
You seem fine.
You see your pals. Me, my girlfriends.
I bet you badmouth us.
We badmouth you, we do, we don't.
Help me?
Caress me.
I can't, you kept it on.
If that's all it takes.
Love is dumb.
It's just a power trip.
A guy you're faithful to, won't screw you.
Cheat on him, and he screws you.
They don't guess you're cheating...
they sense you're getting away.
My fists are closed. I can't do a thing.
Now what? What's this act?
Why can't you see I only do this with you?
I've never touched anyone's cock.
Then why won't you leave me alone?
Because you do nothing.
Now... you be me.
You be the woman, I'll be your guy, I'll screw you.
Can you believe it?
That's how that selfish bastard got me pregnant.
Nobody came, not even him.
He did a Virgin Mary stunt on me, with a drop of seminal fluid.
Let your legs fall. Relax, there.
The neck is closed, good. The uterus is...
It's been 8 weeks.
Your turn.
That's how I became a case study for pimply interns.
A slab of meat.
Once you're pregnant, they spread your legs
and peer all the way up your vagina.
Then I took a bitter liking to it.
As I'd made a truce with Robert while I was pregnant,
nobody else touched me.
My only sexual relationships became my monthly visits.
I'm uneasy on an exam table, I resent spreading my legs.
That's why it affects me.
I'm a bit of an ice-maiden.
I see why the Chinese used an ivory replica to probe your body.
Though even that's distasteful.
Porn movies, too, protect your libido, you watch a surrogate image.
But what you can't tolerate, you can't tolerate in images, either.
An image, is just as compromising, since it stands for you.
Very good.
Paul is right.
You can't love a face if a cunt goes with it.
A cunt doesn't go with a face.
I fantasize about a brothel...
where a head is separated from a body,
by a guillotine-like contraption before the blade comes down.
Of course, there's no blade.
I wear a silky red skirt that billows up and rustles.
And those silly trappings that give men a hard-on.
It's proof a hard-on doesn't mean they love us.
Paul is right, being a woman has a fatal flaw.
If she gets you hard, you want to bone her.
Wanting to bone her is to despise her.
Love between men and women is impossible.
Men you can't see, you imagine coarse and ape-like.
Aziz, look at my cock.
As if crudeness is all one can expect.
There we see the head...
that was the spine, the thigh bone.
Want to know what it is?
It's a boy.
Fabulous.
You want me to marry you?
Yes.
That night, Paul made love to me for the first time in ages.
And for the last time.
From then on he lugged me around like a ball and chain,
a duty he had to endure.
We went out every evening...
with his sister and brother-in-law.
Now that I was the mother of his son,
I'd met his whole family.
You ok?
Two whiskies.
- You ok? - Fine.
Want another drink?
Later.
Please don't make a scene.
No scene.
I felt like dancing, so I grabbed a girl.
I almost kissed her, she was so hot for me.
Then I dumped her where I picked her up.
She never knew what happened.
So you can't complain.
I didn't.
But secretly you do.
A whisky, please.
You two quit loving each other?
You hold her like a deadbeat.
Sit down.
Not too tired?
I'm fine.
She's my sister, but I'll tell her.
That a man likes a challenge.
He hates being followed around.
He needs to fear he may lose her.
Then he chases her.
Or chases someone else.
A man's always chasing.
You agree?
You and your chasing's a bore.
The bastard.
He leaves me alone with my anxiety...
that soon my vagina will expand and expel the baby.
Wake up.
I'm sick of your boozing.
You slob, you dumb male model.
Be right down.
What's going on?
You'll like it.
Get on the table. Wait for the contraction to pass.
Breathe deeply.
Breathe. Once it's over, get on the table.
- No, the father can't stay. - Yes, he can.
Am I getting an epidural?
It's too late, your baby's being born.
Ready? We're going to push out the baby.
Inhale.
Inhale, hold your breath, grab the bar.
Push hard, again.
With all your might, hold your breath, more.
It's incredible to create life.
Inhale.
Hold your breath and push. Go on.
They say a woman isn't a woman till she's a mother.
It's true.
Nothing that happened before really matters.
For Christine Pascal.
I gave my son his father's name.
If someone up there counts souls, then we're even.