Woolgathering

  One morning I was called to a studio in Greenwich Village, where a sculptor was beginning a statuette. His name was Millard. He already had a rough version of the figure he wanted and had reached the stage where he needed a model.

The statuette was wearing a clinging dress, and the body showed through in every line and curve. The sculptor asked me to undress completely because he could not work otherwise. He seemed so absorbed by the statuette and looked at me so absently that I was able to undress and take the pose without hesitation. Although I was quite innocent at that time, he made me feel as if my body were no different than my face, as if I were the same as the statuette.

As Millard worked, he talked about his former life in Montparnasse, and the time passed quickly. I didn't know if his stories were meant to affect my imagination, but he showed no signs of being interested in me. He enjoyed recreating the atmosphere of Montparnasse for his own sake. […]

The next day Millard told me about the artist Mafouka, the manwoman of Montparnasse.

"No one knew exactly what she was. She dressed like a man. She was small, lean, flat-chested. She wore her hair short, straight. She had the face of a boy. She played billiards like a man. She drank like a man, with her foot on the bar railing. She told obscene stories like a man. Her drawing had a strength not found in a woman's work. But her name had a feminine sound, her walk was feminine, and she was said not to have a penis. The men did not know quite how to treat her. Sometimes they slapped her on the back with fraternal feelings.

"She lived with two girls in a studio. One of them was a model, the other, a nightclub singer. But no one knew what relationship there was among them. The two girls seemed to have a relationship like that of a husband and a wife. What was Mafouka to them? They would never answer any questions. Montparnasse always liked to know such things, and in detail.

A few homosexuals had been attracted to Mafouka and had made advances towards her or him. But she had repulsed them. She quarreled willingly and struck out with force.

"One day I was quite a little drunk and I dropped into Mafouka's studio. The door was open. As I entered I heard giggling up on the balcony. The two girls were obviously making love. The voices would get soft and tender, then violent and unintelligible, and become moans and sighs. Then there would be silences.

"Mafouka came in and found me with my ear cocked, listening. I said to her, 'Please let me go and see them.'

"I don't mind,' said Mafouka. 'Come up after me, slowly. They won't stop if they think it is just me. They like me to watch them.'

"We went up the narrow stairs. Mafouka called, 'It's I.' There was no interruption of the noises. As we went up, I bent over so that they could not see me. Mafouka went to the bed. The two girls were naked. They were pressing their bodies against each other and rubbing together. The friction gave them pleasure. Mafouka leaned over them, caressed them. They said, 'Come on, Mafouka, lie with us.' But she left them and took me downstairs again.

"'Mafouka,' I said, 'What are you? Are you a man or a woman? Why do you live with these two girls? If you are a man, why don't you have a girl of your own? If you are a woman, why don't you have a man occasionally?'

"Mafouka smiled at me.

"'Everybody wants to know. Everybody feels that I am not a boy. The women feel it. The men don't know for sure. I am an artist.'

"'What do you mean, Mafouka?'

"T mean that I am, like many artists, bisexual.'

"'Yes, but the bisexuality of artists is in their nature. They may be a man with the nature of a woman, but not with such an equivocal physique as you have.'

"'I have an hermaphrodite's body.'

"'Oh, Mafouka, let me see your body.'

"'You won't make love to me?'

"'I promise.'

"She took her shirt off first and showed a young boy's torso. She had no breasts, just the nipples, marked as they would be on a young boy. Then she slipped down her slacks. She was wearing a woman's panties, flesh-colored, with lace. She had a woman's legs and thighs. They were beautifully curved, full. She was wearing women's stockings and garters. I said, 'Let me take the garters off. I love garters.' She handed me her leg very elegantly with the movement of a ballet dancer. I slowly rolled down the garter. I held a dainty foot in my hand. I looked up at her legs, which were perfect. I rolled down the stocking and saw beautiful, smooth, woman's skin. Her feet were dainty and carefully pedicured. Her nails were covered with red lacquer. I was more and more intrigued. I caressed her leg. She said, 'You promised you would not make love to me.'

"I stood up. Then she slipped down her panties. And I saw below the delicate curled pubic hair, shaped like a woman's, that she carried a small atrophied penis, like a child's. She let me look at her—or at him, as I felt I now should say.

"Why do you call yourself by a woman's name, Mafouka? You are really like a young boy except for the shape of your legs and arms.'

"Then Mafouka laughed, this time a woman's laugh, very light and pleasant. She said, 'Come and see.' She lay back on the couch, opened her legs and showed me a perfect vulva mouth, rosy and tender, behind the penis.

'"Mafouka!'

"My desire was aroused. The strangest desire. The feeling of wanting to take both a man and woman in one person. She saw the stirring of it in me and sat up. I tried to win her by a caress, but she eluded me.

"'Don't you like men?' I asked her. 'Haven't you ever had a man?'

"'I'm a virgin. I don't like men. I feel a desire for women only, but I can't take them as a man could. My penis is like a child's—I cannot have an erection.'

"'You are a real hermaphrodite, Mafouka,' I said. That is what our age is supposed to have produced because the tension between the masculine and the feminine has broken down, people are mostly half of one and half of the other. But I have never seen it before—actually, physically. It must make you very unhappy. Are you happy with women?'

'"I desire women, but I do suffer, because I cannot take them like a man, and also because when they have taken me like Lesbians, I still feel some dissatisfaction. But I am not attracted to men. I fell in love with Matilda, the model. But I could not keep her. She found a real Lesbian for herself, one that she feels she can satisfy. This penis of mine always gives her the feeling that I am not a real Lesbian. And she knows she has no power over me, even though I was attracted to her. So you see, the two girls have formed another link together. I stand between them, perpetually dissatisfied. Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.'

"'Poor Mafouka.'

" 'Poor Mafouka. Yes, when I was born they did not know how to name me. I was born in a small village in Russia. They thought I was a monster and should perhaps be destroyed, for my own sake. When I came to Paris I suffered less. I found I was a good artist.' "

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