Month: September 2006

So I went to the swimming pool on Monday evening. My body remembers and the first one to tell me « breaststroke is useless » gets a good slap across the face. As promised, I took notes during that glorious hour. Let’s go? If you love me, dive with me.

8h00: I am about to leave my place and go to work.

8h05: Fuck, that’s right, tonight I’m going to the swimming pool.

8h10: After knocking over my panties drawer, the dirty laundry bag and the man’s underpants drawer I end up finding my old swimsuit in the entrance (???) closet.

8h15: After emptying the closet, the kids’ underwear drawers and my bras drawer, I end up finding, at the bottom of the laundry bag (???), my swimming cap.

10h00: Everybody at work knows I am going to the swimming-pool tonight.

11h00: I end up being told that there is nothing special about going to the swimming-pool.

11h15: Apparently my swimming-pool is the one where Juliette Binoche was swimming in “Blue”.

11h16: A female colleague tells me that this swimming-pool is meant for good swimmers, if you don’t swim fast enough you get beaten.

11h20: A male colleague tells me that this swimming-pool is where old ladies come to chit-chat in the water, that it’s awful for good swimmers and that often he feels like beating those ladies.

11h22: What a strange idea to choose a place where YOU WEAR A SWIMMING CAP to chat.

11h23: I decide not to listen to my colleagues anymore and make my own mind.

15h00: I’m so happy to go to the swimming-pool tonight, it will do me good.

15h10: I call my friend to tell her I’m so happy to be going to the swimming-pool tonight.

15h12: My friend tells me she prepared an aqua gym program.

15h13: I’m wondering if she’s the right person to go to the swimming-pool with.

18h00: In one hour, I’m going to the swimming-pool.

18h15: I don’t want to go anymore, but I don’t dare to call my friend. I fear she’ll be mad at me.

18h16: I bravely send a text.

18h50: The man calls me to let me know how proud he is that I’m going to the swimming-pool.

18h52: “found my bag, wait 4 me, Im comin”

19h00: We meet in front of the swimming-pool. I didn’t remember how tall my friend is.

19h10: My friend is really nice she bought a nylon cap for me. It looks like an underpants but doesn’t hurt your hair.

19h15: I just won my fight with my suit. I’m already out of breath.

19h16: This swimming-pool is just as nice as in “Blue”, with an extra crowd and a few more swimming caps. I am Juliette Binoche. But blond. With a cap.

19h17: We enter the water with our underpants on our head. My friend gives me a small foam board. “The important part is leg kicks” she explains. Breaststroke is useless.

19h18: I grab my board and set forth.

19h23: There must be something I’m doing wrong.

19h25: I’m not moving, fuck.

19h29: I keep the board but do frog kicks. When I pass my friend, I do normal kicks. Luckily, it is fast. Well, she is fast.

19h32: My friend busted me. I explain that I’m not moving when I simply kick. « You must straighten your legs more », she says.

19h33: oh, alright.

19h34: At the same time if I straighten more, it will cost me a kneecap.

19h40: We do a two minutes break. I’ve swam 4 lengths. I’m super proud.

19h41: « We’re going for one k right? » my friend asks.

19h42: « Yeah, great – it’s good to have an objective, so I tell myself – how many lengths? I did four already, I must be quite close by now»

19h43: « Another 36 and you’re done »

19h44: She is so funny, my friend, it’s cool to go swimming with her, we don’t stop laughing.

19h45: She is not joking actually.

19h46: I’m desperately kicking while counting in my head. She must be crap at math and cause of a stupid group of tens error, we are now going for ten ks in this fucking swimming-pool.

19h48: 40 times 25 meter, whatever calculation method you use, gives one kilometer.

20h00: 28 left.

20h02: My friend won’t stop passing me. She annoys me so much. On top of that she is pretty, even with the cap.

20h05: I can’t believe it, a guy just hit me.

20h06: « Sorry? What? Four times? What four times? I’ve kicked you four times? I, I am, glug glug glug… sorry, burps, pfffhheuurs »

20h08: Lucky draw, one psychopath in the pool and he’s for me.

20h10: “Come on, only 14 left!”, my friend shouts. She has a sadistic smile.

20h12: however hard I think about it, I can’t find a moment when I was mean to her. However there must be an explanation to the fact that she wants to kill me.

20h14: I’ve done 35.

20h15: Yes, that’s right, the 30th was worth three.

20h16: Ok, the 24th too.

20h18: Hey no, not the 27th. Sorry but when I cheat, I tell and for that one I didn’t.

20h30: 39.

20h31: The swimming-pool closes, we must get out.

20h32: I’ll do forty, even if I must die. No one will stop me.

20h33: Foooooooooooooooooooorty. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

20h34: I’m the last one in the pool. I can’t breathe, my hair is all over the place and one of my boobs is clearing off.

20h35: My legs want to keep swimming, so it seems.

20h36: Not very handy to walk.

20h38: Three more frog kicks and I reach the changing room.

20h40: I put my clothes back on, I’m cold, my jeans are sticking to my legs.

20h41: Shit… my sock is soaked, but I was so careful.

20h42: Normal, it’s my swimming cap.

20h43: I can’t stop giggling.

20h44: I’m wasted.

20h45: I’m stoned from chlorine, it’s the only explanation.

20h50: I’m lounging in the underground. I swam one kilometer. Yeah, ok, if you remove triple-words it comes down to about 600 meters. But still!

Here is the rest of the story of the much talked about day when I bought my ‘Sonia’.

I have to admit, the one on the picture is not mine. But it looks like it…

14h26: Naomi welcomes me all smiles. I can’t tell if she’s really classy or looks like a call girl. She confirms, I’m at the right place and asks if I want to go upstairs to ‘admire the different accessories’.

14h27: Naomi shows me the way. I follow her and take the narrow stairs.

14h28: I arrive in a boudoir full of pink treasures. Alluring underwear, lace bed jacket, nightdresses which seem to be screaming “tear me off”. Naomi suggests that I browse before making a choice. I know it’s not the initial goal but I think I’ll yield for this adorable and tiny cashmere tank top which, at best, will be a bra on me.

14h29: 350 euros.

14h30: Naomi, let’s get serious, show me your devices and let’s get it over with.

14h31: Naomi starts her presentation. It would be the same if she were talking about watches. “Here is one of our biggest successes, the ‘rabbit’[1]. It’s a small vibratoooooooooor very handy, which you can slip in your pocket. There is a plastic base and a deeeeeeeelicious little silicone rabbit sitting on top, the shape and texture optimize pleasure and quickly provoke clitoral orgasm.” Or else: “theeeeese are geisha balls. They are linked together with a thread which enables you to pull them out when you want. Vibrations generated when you walk provoke an indefinable pleasuuuuuuuure”.

14h32: I’m scarlet.

14h33: It’s official, I’m a real tight-ass.

14h34: Naomi just switched on one of their other hits, the lip stick vibrator. It looks like a Guerlain. She puts it in the palm of my hand.

14h34: “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”…

14h35: Naomi explains the lip stick is perfect for plane trips and it poses as real lip stick for customs checks. “It’s made for external use but can be used at the vagina entrance to stimulate the G spot”.

14h36: the word vagina makes me jump. When sometimes with my gynecologist I have to speak about that place, the maximum I manage to say is ‘inside’.

14h37: Sometimes I say ‘my lady part’.

14h38: Phew, here are the ducks, I’m starting to be super hot. There are three colors, pink, purple and black. Now that I look at them, they are not so appealing; they look too much like my kids’. Furthermore, Naomi precise, “they are only for external use”.

14h39: I pretend to be like “of course it’s for external use. You must be really dumb to think of something else.”

14h40: I have to get the hell out of here, Naomi is liberating me at breakneck speed, in two minutes I’ll be saying the word clitoris.

14h41: “And that small purple one, there, I was wondering, it’s slightly bent to better stimulate my clitoris or reach my G-spot?”

14h41: Brigitte Lahaye[2], out of my body, now!

14h42: I go for the nice purple one which looks like a candy and take a pink duck for my colleague.

14h43: Ducks bring cash in, I confirm! I’m not far from the 110 euros baby bodysuit.

14h44: I go back to work.

14h45: I have two vibrators in my bag.

14h46: If I get knocked over by a car, it’s the first thing the rescue squad will find.

14h47: I want to be knocked over by a car.

14h50: I hug the walls at work and pretend to be working. My colleagues give me questioning looks, I acknowledge it was super easy to be a liberated woman.

15h56: I can’t stop thinking of it.

…

17h45: I leave work pretending I have a migraine.

18h15: Come on go, go, go kids, hurry and finish your diner, no, daddy’s not here, he’ll come back late, yes, poor dad, it’s not nice for him, right? Yes, mummy will be a bit lonely but, don’t worry, mummy has many things to do. Come on darlings, teeth, wee-wee and in bed. Hu, what? Of course it’s time. It’s exactly 8 o’clock.

19h00: Kids are in bed.

19h01: How come, may I ask you, EXCEPTIONALLY putting my kids in bed at 19h would make me a bad mother? They were exhausted. After a good night of 14h sleep, they will be in great shape.

19h05: I take my Sonia out of its black case with strass and SR logo. Only for the case I was right.

19h06: I switch on the gem…

19h07: Hiiii !!???

19h08: Rohhhhh….

19h09: ha… ha… ha… haaaaaaaa!

19h10: I just had my first premature ejaculation.

Well, well, well… That much talked about day when I bought my ‘Sonia’ – I’ll call it like that, it’s nicer than vibrator – here is how it went…

13h30: It’s lunch time. Today is a colleague’s birthday and I had the crazy idea to give her, as a joke – yeah right! – a pink vibrating duck from Sonia’s as it is classier than going to a sex shop.

13h31: My colleagues who were supposed to come along step aside at the last minute, it’s too weird to buy something like this.

13h32: I might as well admit it right now, the idea of a sexy gift was mine.

13h33: I didn’t know I was on the divan, but right, it’s an excuse to buy one for myself.

13h45: Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris 6ème, Sonia Rykiel’s shop’s front window is entirely black, I’m very impressed.

13h50: After walking by innocently five times, I finally enter. The bellboy looks at me with obvious contempt.

13h52:  I sink in a ten centimeter thick carpet. There are at least ten assistants – one of them looks like Gwyneth Paltrow – and two customers speaking American.

13h53: I have a discreet look at the shelves but see no ducks. I think I’ve read somewhere that the sex toys section is upstairs.

13h54: After checking, there are no stairs going up, only one going down.

13h55: It would be simpler to ask but right now I don’t feel super liberated anymore. I sneak down the spiral staircase.

13h56: “Miiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssss???”. Shit, Gwyneth busted me. “May I help you? This section of the shop is not open to customers, kindly come up “.

13h57: “Ah, hum… yes, I… I was looking for the… I mean… Actually I’d like to buy one of your… one of your ducks…”

13h58: I’m in one of the most chic shop in the capital city, facing Gwyneth Paltrow and I just said I want to buy ‘a duck’. I’m mortified.

13h59: I can’t help it, with this 10.000 euros per square meter carpet, paneling, glitter dresses and two meter high assistants, the word ‘vibrator’ can’t pass my lips.

14h00: Appalled, Gwyneth gives me half a smile I wouldn’t mark as warm. “You mean our sex-toooooooys? I’m sorry but you’re mistaken, our specialised section is two street away, exactly in ‘de Greneeeeeeeelle’ street, miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssss ”

14h01: I asked for ‘a duck’. Later I’ll be remembered as the chick who went to a Madonna concert wearing Birkenstock and who asks for ‘a duck’ at Sonia Rykiel’s.

14h02: I apologise to my children, it’s the type of shame that leaves a mark on several generations.

14h03: I get out the hell of there without further ado.

14h10: De Grenelle street. Rykiel front window, must be it. I enter, there are only shoes, no stairs.

Fuck, they hide them well those ‘sex-toooooooys’. This time Gwyneth is a brunette but she’s the same. In an embarrassed whisper, for the respectable grand-mother busy trying on magnificent 300 euros Richelieux not to hear me, I ask where the sex-toys are.

14h11: Gwyneth n°2 smiles kindly. We recognized each other, we speak the same language, I’m not one of those gooses who ask for ‘a duck’.

14h12: Here it’s Rykiel shoes, explains my new friend. For sex-toys, it’s further down the street.

14h13: I realise Sonia Rykiel owes the whole de Grenelle street. Ducks bring cash in!

14h16: This time, it’s the right shop. I enter without checking. I’ve had enough, I’m overshooting my lunch break and I’m exhausted. I decide to be really liberated and shout, with my stentorian voice, an echoing: “Good day, can you please show me your VIBRATORS?”.

14h17: I’m at Rykiel Baby.

14h19: On my way out, I get a glimpse, between two completely outraged mothers and a horrified Gwyneth – isn’t it a bit worrying all those Gwyneth? – of a 110 euros baby bodysuit.

14h20: I’m wondering how many sex toys you can buy with 110 euros.

14h21: I’ve had my fill of ridicule for the next ten years. Too bad, I’ll continue giggling in front of page 456 of La Redoute catalogue. I will NEVER find out if it actually smoothes out the cheeks.

14h22: The window doesn’t give any doubt, purple suspender belts, lace nightdresses, pink and glittering masks, silky cashmere wrap-over tops, it can be only here. The shop’s name confirms it, “Rykiel Karma Body and Soul”. If I can’t make a legionnaire blush with the articles in there, I’ll be hanged.

14h23: I’m aware I’m putting my employer in a difficult situation, he must have been waiting for me for twenty minutes already but I can’t help it. I want my duck.

14h24: Hooray, no Gwyneth.

14h25: Her friend Naomi is replacing her.

To be continued…

The day before my first day at school – and secondarily my coming back to work – the man, with his great insight, noticed I was slightly stressed, even totally paralyzed by the thought of going back to my crazy working-girl pace – yeah, I’m showing off it’s good for my ego. Thus, because he is perfect – but is it still useful to point out? – He slipped away on Sunday to come back a few moments later with a mysterious red envelope. It contained an invite for a one hour foot massage in the Chinese beauty institute in a nearby street. After two days of hard labour which screw up all benefits of my 25 days leave, I thus went yesterday afternoon – thank you part-time god – to this Asian salon, to experience one of the most zen moment in my life.

Actually, it’s normal since yesterday, I went to China…

Wanna come?

15h55: I leave my place, direction: two streets away. I’m curious and suspicious at the same time, especially looking at the dubious front window.

16h00: I enter the institute and a young woman who doesn’t speak French takes me to the massage room.

16h01: I’m in Beijing, Shanghai or Lu-Xien

16h02: Alright, Lu-Xien doesn’t exist but I just realized in terror that, right now, I can’t name more than two Chinese cities. However my geography subject during the Bac[1] was agriculture in China. I got 15 out of 20.

16h03: It was in 1989.

16h04: I took the Bac exam 17 years ago. I need a chair, like, right now.

16h05: Let’s forget about time which passes and is fatal, and concentrate on this room which exudes peace and softness.  Big tilted armchairs in which you just want to sink down are aligned, covered with rather kitsch towels.

16h06: All around there are small booths closed with curtains. Weird slapping noises are coming from them. I’m really happy not to be one the poor thing stuck in there. There’s also a Chinese temple at the end of the room. A window is open on a courtyard with trees.

16H07: Massage therapists are small brunettes, they giggle in Chinese and their names are Ding, Min or Lung. Mine will be Jing.

16h08: Jing makes me comfortable and even if she doesn’t speak French, I understand from her eyes that tearing off your toenails when you took the Bac exam fifteen years ago, it’s not very zen.

16h09: I’m lying on one of the armchair and my feet are plunged in a burning hot bath with Chinese herbs.

16h10: Jing brings me jasmine tea. I feel close to ecstasy. I close my eyes and listen to the music, the same as in my favorite Chinese restaurant.

16h12: Jing washes and scrubs my feet with a pumice-stone, I want to laugh a bit, but it feels good.

16h14: Jing dries my feet and put them on a small rectangular stool. She spreads butter which smells coco. Her hands are soft.

16h15: Jing, it’s true, we don’t speak the same language, we don’t have the same culture and we’ll have to face our families’ anger, but I truly believe we could live a beautiful story together. Let’s go to Amsterdam, get married, right now.

16h16: But now, Jing, you’re hurting me slightly.

16h17: Forget the wedding.

16h18: It is said foot sole is linked to all body parts.

16h20: The good part of feeling pain is that it gets even better afterwards.

16h21: I was not thinking of sex.

16h22: Alright, I was thinking of sex.

16h23: Jing cracks my toes. I think she tore one off.

16h24: I sneakily count, it’s fine, they are all there.

16h25: Two young fashionistas have just arrived. They don’t seem to be from the area, maybe they even crossed Paris for Jing and her friends. They look like Marie-Claire journalists.

16h26: I’ve been living for two years two meters away from a hype spot without even knowing.

16h27: I just want to tell these two girls that I live close by and I come when I want, if I feel like it.

16h28: I couldn’t help it. They say nothing but look at me in a different way, I can feel it.

16h30: Jing, I’ll come back, I promise, provided you stop tickling my ears, I’m very sensitive to it.

16h31: After checking, no one is touching my ears.

16h32: Feet are REALLY linked to ALL body parts.

16h50: Huh? What? Where am I? Oh right, in Xu-Lien, I believe I’ve slept a bit.

16h59: Jing finishes with a calves massage.

17h00: Right, you are not having a blast, cellulite, right?

17h01: Yes, I have cellulite on my calves. Except on my scalp, I don’t really know where I don’t have some.

17h12: We finish with neck, shoulders and back.

17h13: How come we’re already done, Jing ?

17h20: I end up on a Parisian pavement, I tell myself that actually China is terrifeet.

For those tempted by the trip, all this happens at Institut Feihe, 12 rue Caillaux, Paris 13ème,  01 44 23 91 70. It’s open every evening until… 23h !!!

I forgot! For a one hour massage, it costs only 28 euros, which is, I find, very reasonable…