Alina Reyes

Frankrig, en lille by, ca 1980
En ung kvinde er til hverdag kunststuderende på Beaux-Arts inde i storbyen, hvor hun også har en kæreste Daniel. Men i sommerferien arbejder hun som kassedame hos en slagter på landet, mens hun bor hos sine forældre. Slagteren taler hele dagen om sex. Sagte så kun hun kan høre det. Det er varmt og hans ord har en vis virkning på hende. Overalt i butikken hænger slagtede dyr, kaniner, høns, kyllinger, svin, kalv, okse og lam. I køleskabet findes ulækre ting som svampede og grå lunger, der sælges til kattemad. Og kalvebrisler, der er reserveret til faste kunder, fordi der kun er sparsomme mængder. Og fårenosser til en bestemt kunde. I kølerummet er der køligt og af og til går mester og hans kone ud i rummet og kommer ud igen med håret og tøjet i uorden efter ti minutters tid. En dag går slagteren og mesters kone derud og kassedamen får et kig på hvad der foregår. Hun er ikke jomfru længere, for hun fik lyst til Daniel og kom ind til ham en nat, hvor han overnattede ved hendes bror. Men det var ikke en fornøjelse.
Nu i varmen og med lugten af kød omkring sig er hun ved at blive vanvittig. Hun tager med slagteren hjem. Han tager et brusebad, mens hun tisser. Da hun er færdig går hun ind i bruseren til ham med tøjet på og sæber ham ind. Han slikker hende til orgasme og elsker med hende og da de er færdige tørrer han hende og lægger hende ind i den varme seng, hvor hun falder i søvn. Da hun vågner, kan hun mærke at han igen har lyst og de tager en omgang mere.
Om aftenen tager hun hen på Den sorte Kat sammen med Pierre og Dominique, som hun lige har mødt. Der er maskebal og dans og Pierre på 18 har et dødningehoved som maske. De går ud i skoven og elsker. Om morgenen vågner hun radbrækket i en grøft. Men hun kommer til hægterne igen og føler sig stærk som slagteren. Hun kommer til et hus med en rosenhæk og spiser af bladene.

Nydelig lille fortælling om en ung kvinde, der udlever sine lyster og bliver stærkere. Fortællingen spiller på kødlugte, synet af blod og indvolde og rosendufte.… (meer)

SECTION 1
You enter a room. On a low marble table lies a paperback book with a vaguely titillating cover. Its pages are well-thumbed; the spine is creased. On the far side of the room, you see another door standing slightly ajar. Beyond it you can hear the sound of laughter and merriment, and the haunting strains of the Benny Hill theme tune played on an accordion. Do you

Examine the mysterious book. ↳ Go to SECTION 3

Investigate what lies beyond the next door. ↳ Go to SECTION 8

Turn and leave the way you came; literature holds no interest for you. ↳ Go to SECTION 9

SECTION 2
Tucking the book under your arm, you pass quickly through the nearest door to find yourself in a small, dark room. It is dominated by a large lectern standing in the centre, the kind of thing you might normally expect to see at the front of a cathedral – except that this one, you realise as you come closer, is covered in obscene carvings of buxom girls and alarmingly ithyphallic goblins. Positioning yourself behind it, you place the book on the lectern and see with satisfaction that its pages fit perfectly.

You settle down to examine the book's contents, which are provocative. Reading from the front gives you a male protagonist, while reading from the back gives you a female one. The female half, at least, is an interesting mix of the cliché (pirates, knights, men in kilts) and the unexpected (clowns?!), ranging dauntlessly from lush, sensual scenes of coy exploration and suggestiveness all the way up to outré descriptions of exhibitionism, orgies, monster-sex, watersports and horny canines. You certainly have to be careful about what choices you make here…. And yet the writing is always dextrously appealing, and not without a strain of playful humour. You scan a chapter in which your heroine and a friend enjoy the company of a whole company of firemen:

Les hommes s'étaient alignés en deux files indiennes, et chacun polissait sa lance à incendie pour nous la présenter dans la meilleur état. Quand ma compagne vit que les deux premiers étaient en mesure d'offrir une queue parfaitement dure et dressée, elle frappa dans ses mains, et aussitôt ils se détachèrent du peloton de leurs camarades pour venir nous rejoindre au petit trot, malgré les pantalons qui entravaient leurs chevilles.

[The men were arranged into two lines, and each was polishing his fire-hose so as to show it off to best effect. When my companion saw that the two men at the front were in a position to offer us perfectly hard, upright cocks, she clapped her hands, and they immediately detached themselves from their platoon to join us at a jog, despite the trousers gathered around their ankles.]

You stifle a chuckle. But it seems late; there may not be time to read much more. Do you

Leave the room and try to find your way back to the exit. ↳ Go to SECTION 10

Turn the book around and explore the Male half. ↳ Go to SECTION 11

SECTION 3
The book is called Derrière la porte, which is best translated as ‘Behind Closed Doors’. A blush comes to your cheek as you flick through the pages, which seem to detail a variety of fantastical and inventive sexual encounters described in fluid, poetic prose. Like the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books of your childhood, the action advances only as you, the Reader, make choices. Turning the book over carefully, you realise with interest that it can be read from either front or back, the difference being in whether your hero will be Male or Female.

As you are contemplating the book, there is a sound from in front of you. A Beautiful Woman has slipped through the door opposite; she casts a nervous glance to the room behind her, and holds a finger to her lips, begging you not to give her position away. Do you

Stay and talk to the Beautiful Woman. ↳ Go to SECTION 6

Push past her and explore the room beyond. ↳ Go to SECTION 8

SECTION 4
Passing through the crowds, you look from left to right, marvelling at the strange costumes and encounters on every side. Before long, you have lost your way; when you look behind you, the door you came in by seems no longer to be visible, obscured, perhaps, by the sudden orgiastic flashmob enacting Eric Prydz's Call On Me with more than religious enthusiasm.

Just then, there is a commotion of some kind. A woman has entered at the far end; everyone nearby has turned to see her, pointing and whispering excitedly amongst themselves. ‘It's her!’ you hear a bunny-girl murmur to her beau. ‘The Authoress!’ The woman paces calmly through her admirers, until she reaches a small door set into the wall. Smiling graciously at those nearby, she slips through without another word and disappears, to widespread groans of disappointment. Approaching the door, you try the handle carefully, and find to your surprise that it opens at once.

You follow the woman inside. She is standing a short distance away, facing a large wooden desk behind which sits a jowly man smoking a fat cigar. He scowls at you as you enter. ‘Shut the door and keep quiet!’ he shouts. The Authoress only pouts at you conspiratorially. She has a biro behind her ear, and a Hitachi Magic Wand slung in a holster at her left hip.

‘So what's your new project,’ the man demands, jabbing his cigar at her. ‘We need a follow up to that book about sleeping with a greengrocer.’

‘A butcher,’ she corrects him.

‘Whatever. Tell me about the new novel.’

‘It is an erotic choose-your-own-adventure book—’

The man behind the desk is holding up his hand. ‘I've heard enough. Where do I sign,’ he says, pulling a bag of euros from a desk drawer.

The Authoress hands him a contract, and turns to face you. ‘I'm going this way,’ she tells you, pointing to one of the room's many doors. ‘Would you like to come with me? Perhaps we can read my book together.’ Do you

Follow the woman. ↳ Go to SECTION 12

Politely decline, and try the door next to you instead, on your own. ↳ Go to SECTION 10

SECTION 5
You stumble through the corridors for what seems like hours as the light fades. The music you heard earlier seems always to be just around the next corner. Finally, exhausted, despairing of ever finding your way back to the rooms you saw when you first came in, you collapse to the floor, your head in your hands, and gradually sink into a fitful sleep. When you wake, all this will seem, perhaps, like a dream – a strange, feverish dream, like that time you ate too much morbier and passed out on the sofa in front of Nashville. Just a dream: no less, but no more.

Your adventure ends here.

SECTION 6
The woman closes the door behind her and takes a few steps towards you. You know she is French, because she is naked from the waist down and holding a mille-feuille. ‘I hope you have been enjoying my little book,’ she says with a heavy accent and a smile. ‘When I decided to write this little jeu d'esprit, I wanted to provide something for everyone, young and old, male and female, vanilla and kinky. But always elegant: these are, en fin de compte, intrinsically French erotic fantasies.’

‘Ah,’ you nod wisely. ‘Exposing yourself to strangers on the RER, that sort of thing.’

She executes a disapproving moue. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Getting tied up and spanked with a copy of Charlie Hebdo?’

‘No—’

You pause.

‘Fucked by riot police over the back of a Vélib' stand?’

‘Just stop.’

The two of you eye each other warily. Will you

Stay and talk further with The Authoress. ↳ Go to SECTION 7

Leave her, and take the book off to investigate it elsewhere, alone. ↳ Go to SECTION 2

SECTION 7
‘How do you think men and women differ when it comes to sexual desire?’ you ask her, curious.

‘Women's desires are deep and polymorphous, their depths still unplumbed by art or science,’ she says with a shrug. ‘And men – men are adorable. Their desires are best greeted with sympathy and amusement than with disdain.’

‘And what about love?’ you demand, stepping closer. ‘Is there any room for love in all of this?’

‘Mais bien sûr que oui – but that is what my book is all about,’ she says, surprised. ‘That is the whole point. I hope to show that, in the end, the idealised love-object is just as much a piece of unreality and wishful thinking as the most depraved sexual fantasy-figure. Which is not to say that either of them cannot ever be found.’

She holds a hand out to you.

‘Come with me. Perhaps we can explore these matters in more detail elsewhere.’ Do you

Take the woman's hand and go with her. ↳ Go to SECTION 12

Politely decline, and try another door on your own. ↳ Go to SECTION 10

SECTION 8
Leaving the book, you slip through the door and find yourself in a large, open room filled with activity of every kind. Benches and loungers are gathered in one area, scattered with pillows and throw-cushions; nearby, a large pool of the sort normally associated with a classical harem diffuses the warm light that falls from some distant window in the ceiling. Steam hangs in the air, making everything appear dreamlike and insubstantial. Men and women in varying stages of undress are everywhere: couples push each up against the walls, twins in 1960s nursing uniforms cavort poolside, a troop of shirtless lumberjacks walk past wiping sweat from their brows. A large tricolor hangs on the far wall. ‘What is this place,’ you breathe, eyes wide.

‘This is, like, Alina's fantasy world,’ calls out a nearby girl in an abbreviated baker's outfit, complete with white toque, who is doing something obscene with a ficelle. ‘It's like a sexy French Disneyland.’

‘It's all in the book, friend,’ says a muscled centaur in biker's leathers, putting his hand on your shoulder. ‘Here, take my copy if you like, and go check it out.’ He holds out a copy of the paperback you saw earlier, gesturing to a door nearby. Do you

Take the book and examine it more closely. ↳ Go to SECTION 2

Refuse the book and leave the way you came, having seen enough. ↳ Go to SECTION 9

Stay and explore the room in more detail, and perhaps open one of the other doors. ↳ Go to SECTION 4

SECTION 9
As you leave the strange room, you are hit by a bus and killed instantly. Doctors later say that if you had only been carrying a book with you, it may have been enough to cushion the blow.

Your adventure ends here.

SECTION 10
You pass through the door and find yourself suddenly – unexpectedly – back outside, blinking in the sunlight. For a second you wonder if you shouldn't check something else within; but when you try the handle behind you, it is now locked shut. You move away hesitantly. It is time, you think, to go back to your serious literature, to immerse yourself in a David Foster Wallace and chase it down with a slim Russell Hoban. Perhaps even tackle one of the Russian classics on your to-be-read pile. Only, occasionally, you might drink too much and find yourself late at night flicking self-hatingly through EL James, or downloading a self-published BDSM short to your Kindle, written by a middle-aged male accountant under the pen-name of Trixie Valentine – and you'll wonder, fleetingly…what might have been….

Your adventure ends here.

SECTION 11
A contrivance in the lectern allows you to rotate the book through a hundred and eighty degrees, so that it's now upside-down. Flipping to the back – which is now the front – you study the book from the point of view of a male protagonist. The same lyricism and inventive boundary-pushing is in evidence, though here the author coarsens her language slightly and attempts to inhabit a stereotypically male gaze; the women are simultaneously revered and objectivised, their component parts and accessories fetichised. As, for instance, when the hero finds himself standing under a city pavement that has become magically transparent:

J'étais comme un petit enfant, ou comme un chien, tout fou, bavant de joie, émerveillé ici par un slip brésilien en dentelle rouge tendu sur des fesses brunes et musclées et une chatte entièrement épilée, là par des Dim Up blancs et une culotte à fleurs sous une jupe plissée, ailleurs par une touffe de poils noirs dépassant d'un trop petit slip rose en nylon, dont les élastiques s'enfonçaient dans une chair blanche et grasse, ou bien par des collants résille moulés sur des cuisses plantureuses et portés sans culotte avec des bottes et une robe en daim, ou encore par des socquettes blanches et une culotte Petit Bateau sous un ensemble en coton de style marin…

[I was like a little kid – or like a dog – completely crazy, drooling with joy, entranced here by some Brazilian-cut knickers in red lace stretched over a tanned, toned bottom and a fully shaved pussy; there by white hold-ups and floral briefs under a pleated skirt – elsewhere by a tuft of black hair poking out from a too-small pair of pink nylon pants, the elastic of which was buried in pale, plump flesh; or again by fishnet tights clinging to shapely thighs and worn knickerless with boots and a suede dress; or again by white ankle socks and M&S knickers under a cotton sailor frock….]

This sense of joyfulness to the writing is maintained even through the book's darker moments. But it is now late; the light from above is fading, and you must find your way out.

You drop the book in a hurry, and head back into the corridor. ↳ Go to SECTION 5

SECTION 12
The woman takes your hand and leads you through the door. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the light, but when you see what is in front of you, you smile. ‘How did you know?’ you ask her.

‘Because I am you,’ she says simply. ‘I am that part of you. And every time I allow you to make a choice about what to see or do next, I come to understand you better.’ She walks ahead, looking at you over her left shoulder, hips sashaying, whistling the Marseilleise.

You choose again: you choose to follow her. You walk together into to the sunset…and into what lies beyond.… (meer)

Le genre du psaume et du cantique est un peu à part dans la littérature spirituelle. Il est pourtant celui qui approche le plus l'état de contemplation de deux êtres faits l'un pour l'autre. Que l'on pense au "cantique des cantiques" de la Bible, si charnel; à la "noche oscura" et à la "vive flamme d'amour" de Saint-Jean de la Croix ; à Sainte Thérèse d'Avila ; à Patrice de la Tour du Pin (Psaumes de tous mes temps); etc. Tous ces auteurs ont éprouvé le fait de partager, sous forme poétique, l'expérience mystique qui les reliait au Christ ; de partager ce don reçu comme une grâce. A chacun son style, ensuite.

Alina Reyes s'inscrit dans cette lignée, sans y déroger, en publiant ces 70 psaumes. Équilibrés, fluides, simples, ces chants d'amour montrent un cœur d'amante passionnée, un cœur en recherche, un cœur qui trouve et qui cherche encore. Les poèmes ne sont pas désincarnés, intellectualisés. Ils plongent au cœur même du christianisme, c'est à dire cette incarnation (dans la chair) qui fait que nous retrouvons les mots de la communion charnelle des êtres, les mots de l'Amour. Par ces mots d'amoureuse passionnée, par ces mots érotiques mais jamais vulgaires, l'auteur nous mène au "point de fusion" où le regard de Dieu ne s'est jamais fait plus proche de celui de l'Homme.

Un beau livre de poèmes, un beau livre spirituel.… (meer)