Free All the Way by Marie Darrieussecq Page B

example, the same reserve or dignity found its full expression in Sixtine, on the beach three or four years ago, when she said she was ‘indisposed’.
    Rose. Now that she’s done it, got rid of it (popped her cherry, the boys say), this thing that keeps her dignified and composed has spread out in her, like a great tree of honesty and pain, of honest pain, which has filled her up from top to bottom and made her a woman.
    And she, Solange, is still just a floppy sack, immature , the head teacher wrote on her report. So it’s obvious, it’s obvious in the clear light of day. That she hasn’t done it. That’s what’s so obvious.
    Apparently in the vagina there’s some thick skin that blocks the way through. That explains the butchering Rose suffered, and other stories she’s heard, or read in Girls Magazine . Boys who were banging on it like it was a closed door, who ripped it to shreds. And then there are the roosters whose chopped-off heads are left to bleed on the bridal sheets of girls who are not virgins and who don’t bleed. It’s all too crazy. Like vampire stories.
    â€˜A bit of red ink would work just as well,’ says Nathalie.
    â€˜Or get married when you’ve got your period,’ Solange says.
    Everyone laughs. She’s surprised at her success—it was just elementary critical thinking.
    â€˜Other way round,’ interrupts Nathalie. ‘You have to calculate the dates so you’re not on the rag. Because hanging round all day at the church while you’re “indisposed” and all that, hello stress, as well as a red stain on the white dress. I’m telling you, it’d be so embarrassing.’ Nathalie came back from a weekend in Bordeaux with ‘hello stress’ and ‘I’m telling you’.
    â€˜It’s so gross to be “indisposed” in church,’ adds Rose, who is also trying out expressions, which suit her in the same way as her new haircut: bizarrely. (She has the same blond highlights as Sixtine. But on Rose, who is a brunette, they make her look like a zebra.)
    â€˜It ith forbidden to go into a church if you are indithpothed,’ announces Concepción, whose embarrassment exaggerates her Spanish lisp—no one makes fun of her because now everyone starts to have their say. Even Christian.
    Because he hangs out with the girls, Christian gets called a faggot: but that’s just it , he likes girls—he says it with that earnest look people get when they’re saying something important. It’s so cool when Christian is there and they dare to talk about these things. And, except for Concepción, who gives up trying, the others all stare straight ahead and talk in voices like on the TV.
    â€˜I will never let my husband touch me when I’m “indisposed”,’ assures Rose, with that solemnity, that ice-queen halo she’s acquired since she became a woman. Someone should take a Polaroid of her to capture what’s taken hold of her—like seeing ghosts around haunted people.
    If only they could get back to her fireman story. I went out with a fireman . Or I went out with a fireman and everything happened so fast between us. Or He’s experienced. And an exquisite shuddering… If Christian could only know. The lips, the hands, the flashing lights. The big face leaning in. The fingers pushing in…Her legs folding and melting away, to carry her off limp and liquid… Another girl, Slurp, interrupts them to ask for a light.
    Another big discussion follows (obviously there’s not going to be any fireman). Until then she’d thought Slurp was called Slurp because she sucks . Sucks, sucks what —stay cool and think, it’s not that difficult to imagine. It is certainly incredible but no more than coupling ; ‘it happens in the best families’, even Christian agrees.
    But the truth is more subtle, just like the truth is never exactly