The Possibility of an Island (19 page)

On waking the following morning, my first joy was the idea that we were going to go down to the beach together. Naturism is tacitly accepted on the Playa de Monsul, as on all the wild, out-of-the-way, almost deserted beaches in the Cabo de Gata Nature Reserve. Of course, nudity is not erotic, at least that’s what they say, for my part I’ve always found nudity
rather
erotic—when the body is beautiful, obviously—let’s just say that it is not what is
most
erotic. I had had tedious discussions about this with journalists at the time when I introduced neo-Nazi naturists into my sketches. I knew, anyway, that she had gone to find something; I had only to wait for a few minutes, then she appeared dressed in white hot pants, with the first two buttons left open, uncovering the start of her pubic hair; over her breasts she had tied a golden shawl, taking care to raise it a bit so that you could see their undersides. The sea was very calm. Once she had sat down, she undressed completely, and opened her thighs wide, offering her sex to the sun. I poured some oil on her belly and began to caress her. I have always been quite gifted at that, at least I know the best way to tackle the inside of the thighs, the perineum, it’s one of my little talents. I was right in the middle of this, and noticing with satisfaction that Esther was beginning to display her desire to be penetrated, when I heard “Hello!” shouted by a strong and joyful voice, a few meters behind me. I turned round: Fadiah was advancing in our direction. She was naked, and carried a white canvas beach bag on her shoulder, adorned with the multicolored star with curved branches that was the sign of the Elohimites; she certainly had a superb body. I got up, made the introductions, and an animated conversation began in English. The little white ass of Esther was very attractive, but the round and curved one of Fadiah was also tempting, in any case I was growing more and more hard, but for the moment they both acted as if they had not noticed; in porn films there is always at least one scene with two women, I was convinced that Esther had nothing against it, and something told me that Fadiah would be equally up for it. On leaning down to relace her sandals, Esther brushed against my cock, as if inadvertently, but I was certain that she had done it deliberately, I took a step in her direction, my sex was now raised up to her face. Patrick’s arrival calmed me down a little; he too was naked, well built but corpulent, I noticed that he was beginning to grow a potbelly, probably thanks to his business lunches, but nonetheless he was a fine medium-size mammal. I had nothing against a foursome in principle but for the moment my vague sexual desires had somewhat subsided.

We continued to talk, all four of us naked, a few meters from the shore. Neither he nor she seemed surprised by the presence of Esther and the disappearance of Isabelle. The Elohimites rarely form stable couples; they can live together for two or three years, sometimes more, but the prophet strongly encourages everyone to keep their autonomy and independence, particularly financial, no one must consent to a durable reduction of their individual freedom, whether through marriage or through a civil union, love must remain open and be able to be constantly renewed, such are the principles decreed by the prophet. Even if she profited from the high earnings of Patrick and the way of life they facilitated, Fadiah probably shared no possessions with him, and they no doubt had separate bank accounts. I asked Patrick for news about his parents, and then he announced some very sad news: his mother had died. This had been very unexpected and brutally sudden: a nosocomial infection contracted in a hospital in Liège, where she had gone for a routine hip operation, to which she had succumbed within a few days. He had been on a work trip to Korea, and hadn’t been able, himself, to see her on her deathbed, by the time he returned she was already frozen—she had given her body to science. Robert, his father, had difficulty handling the shock, in fact he had decided to leave Spain to move into a retirement home in Belgium; he had left him the property.

In the evening, we dined together in a fish restaurant in San José. Robert the Belgian just nodded his head, and took little part in the conversation; he was almost completely sedated by tranquilizers. Patrick reminded me that the winter course was taking place in Lanzarote in a few months’ time, and he strongly hoped that I would be present, the prophet had spoken about this again a week ago, I had made a very good impression on him, and this time it would be truly grandiose, attendees would be coming from across the entire globe. Esther, naturally, was welcome. She had never heard of the sect, so she listened to the presentation of the doctrine with curiosity. Patrick, no doubt warmed up by the wine (a Tesoro de Bullas, from the region of Murcia, a wine that hits you hard), emphasized the sexual aspects in particular. The love taught by the prophet, and which he recommended one practice, was the true, unpossessive, love: if you truly loved a woman, should you not rejoice at seeing her take pleasure with other men? I knew this sort of chat, I had had tedious discussions about it with journalists at the time when I introduced anorexic orgy sluts into my sketches. Robert the Belgian nodded with desperate approval, he who had probably never known any woman other than his wife, now deceased, and who was no doubt going to die quite quickly in his retirement home in Brabant, wallowing anonymously in his urine, still happy to have avoided molestation by the auxiliary nurses. Fadiah too seemed to agree completely, dipped her prawns in the mayonnaise, and greedily licked her lips. I had absolutely no idea what Esther might think of it, I imagine she must have found the theoretical discussions on this subject rather stuffy and
dated,
and frankly I could almost agree with her—although for different reasons, linked rather to a general repulsion I felt for theoretical discussions, it was becoming more and more difficult for me to take part in them, or even to feign some kind of interest. Fundamentally I could have certainly formulated some objections, for example the fact that nonpossessive love only seemed conceivable if you yourself lived in an atmosphere saturated with delights, from which all fear was absent, particularly fear of abandonment and death, and that it implied at the very least, and among other things, eternity; in short the conditions for it were not reality; a few years earlier I would certainly have argued, but I no longer had the strength for it, and anyway it wasn’t too serious, Patrick was a bit drunk, he was listening to himself with satisfaction, the fish was fresh, we were passing what is conventionally called
a pleasant evening.
I promised to come to Lanzarote, Patrick assured me with an expansive gesture that I would benefit from utterly exceptional VIP treatment; Esther did not know, she would probably be taking exams at that time. As he left us I gave Robert a long handshake, and he muttered something I couldn’t understand a word of; he was trembling a little, in spite of the mild temperature. He troubled me, this old materialist, with his features gnawed by sadness, his hair turned white overnight. He had only a few months left, perhaps a few weeks. Who would miss him? Not many; probably Harry, who was going to find himself deprived of pleasing, well-planned, but not too quarrelsome conversations. I then became conscious that Harry would probably bear better than Robert had the death of his wife; he could imagine Hildegarde playing the harp among the angels of the Lord, or, in a more spiritual form, snug in a topological corner of the omega point, something like that; for Robert the Belgian, the situation was hopeless.

“What are you thinking?” asked Esther as we went through the front door. “Sad things…,” I replied pensively. She nodded her head, gave me a serious look, and realized that I really was sad. “Don’t worry…,” she said; then she knelt down to suck me off. She had a very honed technique, doubtless inspired by porn films—it was immediately obvious, for she had that gesture, which you learn quickly in films, of throwing back her hair to allow the boy, for want of a camera, to watch you in action. Since their beginnings, fellatio has always been the jewel in the crown of porn films, the only thing that can serve as a useful model for young girls; it was also the only incidence in which you could occasionally find a bit of real emotion in the act, because it is the only incidence in which the close-up is, also, a close-up of the face of the woman, where you can read in her features that joyful pride, that childlike delight she feels when giving pleasure. In fact, Esther told me afterward that she had refused this caress in her first sexual relationship, and had only decided to launch herself into it after having seen a lot of films. She now did it remarkably well, and took pleasure in her own mastery; later, I never hesitated, even when she seemed too tired or indisposed to fuck, to ask her for a blow job. Immediately before ejaculation she would back off slightly to receive the jet of sperm on her face or in her mouth, but then she would return to the attack to meticulously lick, right to the last drop. Like many very pretty young girls she became ill easily, and had a delicate stomach, and she had at first swallowed reluctantly; but experience had demonstrated to her in the clearest manner possible that she should take advantage of it, that swallowing their sperm was not, for men, an indifferent or optional action, but rather it constituted an irreplaceable personal expression; she now gave herself to it with joy, and I felt immense happiness on coming in her little mouth.

Daniel25, 3

AFTER A FEW WEEKS’ REFLECTION,
I made contact with Marie23, simply leaving her my IP address. She replied with the following message:

I saw God clearly

In his nonexistence,

In his precious nothingness

And I grabbed my chance.

12924, 4311, 4358, 212526. The address indicated was that of a gray, smooth, silky surface, whose thickness was run through with light movements, like a velvet curtain rustled by the wind, to the rhythm of distant brass harmonies. The composition was both calming and slightly intoxicating, and I lost myself for some time in contemplation. Before I had time to reply, she sent me a second message:

After the event of leaving the Void,

We shall swim at last in the liquid Virgin.

51922624, 4854267. In the middle of a blasted landscape composed of carcasses of tall gray buildings, with gaping windows, a giant bulldozer was carrying mud. I zoomed gently into the enormous yellow vehicle, with its rounded forms and its appearance of a remote-controlled toy—there did not seem to be a driver in the cabin. In the middle of the blackened mud, human skeletons were scattered by the bulldozer’s blade as it advanced; by zooming in a little more I made out more clearly tibias and skulls.

“It’s what I see from my window…,” Marie23 wrote to me, passing without warning into noncoding mode. I was a bit taken aback; this meant she was therefore one of the rare neohumans living in the old conurbations. It was a subject, I also realized, that Marie22 had never touched on with my predecessor; at least his commentary carried no trace of it. “Yes, I live in the ruins of New York,” replied Marie23. “In the middle of what men called Manhattan…,” she added a little later.

That obviously was of little importance, since it was out of the question that neohumans would venture out of their residences; but I was happy for my part to live in the middle of a natural landscape. New York was not that unpleasant, she replied; since the time of the Great Drying Up there was lots of wind, the sky was constantly changing, she lived high up and spent a lot of time observing the movement of the clouds. Some chemical factories, probably situated in New Jersey, judging from the distance, continued to function, and at sunset the pollution gave the sky strange pink and green hues; and the ocean was still present, far to the east, unless it was an optical illusion, but in good weather you could sometimes make out a vague shimmering.

I asked her if she had had time to finish the life story of Marie1. “Oh yes…,” she immediately replied. “It is very short: less than three pages. She seemed to have an astonishing talent for synthesis.”

That too was original, but possible. On the other hand, Rebecca1 was famous for her life story, which was more than two thousand pages long, and yet covered a period of only three hours. For this, as well, there was no rule.

Daniel1, 15

THE SEXUAL LIFE OF MAN
can be broken down into two phases: the first when he prematurely ejaculates, and the second when he can no longer manage to get a hard-on. During the first weeks of my relationship with Esther, I noticed that I had returned to the first phase—despite believing, for a long time, that I had begun the second. Sometimes, while walking beside her in a park, or along the beach, I was overwhelmed by an extraordinary drunkenness, I had the impression of being a boy of her age, and I walked more quickly, breathed deeply, walked upright, and spoke loudly. At other times, however, on meeting our reflections in a mirror, I was filled with nausea, and, breathless, I shriveled between the covers; in one fell swoop, I felt so old, so flaccid. On the whole, however, my body wasn’t that badly preserved, I didn’t have a trace of fat, I even had a few muscles; but my ass sagged, and especially my balls, they sagged more and more, and it was irrevocable, I had never heard of any treatment; yet she licked these balls, and caressed them, without seeming at all bothered. As for her body, it was so fresh and smooth.