Platform by Michel Houellebecq Page B

out with a boy. Valérie accepted the separation without any real sorrow—that's the way things go. She had taken to masturbating every morning when she woke up. Each time, in a few short minutes, she would reach orgasm: it was something marvelous, something simple happening within her and that began her day with joy. About boys she had more reservations. Having bought a couple of issues of Hot Video at the station newsstand, she knew what to expect from their anatomy, their organs, and various sexual practices, but she felt a slight repugnance for their body hair and muscles. Their skin looked thick and not at all soft. The brownish, wrinkled skin of their balls, the brutally anatomical look of the glans when the foreskin was retracted, red, shiny . . . none of these things was especially attractive. In the end, however, she slept with a tall blond senior after spending the night in a club in Paimpol, and she did not find it particularly pleasurable. She tried again several times with others throughout high school. It was easy to seduce boys, being as all you had to do was wear a short skirt, cross your legs, wear a low-cut or a see-through blouse that showed off your breasts. These experiences proved to be no more conclusive than the first one. Intellectually, she came to understand the triumphant yet gentle feeling some girls experienced when they felt a cock pushing deep into their pussies, but she herself felt nothing of the sort. It had to be said that condoms didn't help, as the sound the latex made, flaccid and repetitive, constantly brought her down to earth, prevented her from drifting into the nebulous oblivion of sensual pleasure. By the time she took her bac , she had more or less given up.
    Ten years later, she still hadn't really started again, she thought sadly as she woke in the bedroom of the Bangkok Palace. It was not quite daylight. She turned on the overhead light and contemplated her body in the mirror. Her breasts were as firm as ever, they hadn't changed since she was seventeen. Her behind was amazingly round too, without a trace of fat —unquestionably, she had a very beautiful body. Nonetheless, she slipped on a baggy sweatshirt and a shapeless pair of shorts before going downstairs to breakfast. Before she closed the door, she glanced at herself one last time in the mirror. Her face was very average, a little rounded, nice but nothing more than that, and the same was true of her limp, black hair, which fell untidily on her shoulders. Her brown eyes weren't much of an asset either. No doubt she could have made more of herself, a bit of makeup, a different hairstyle, a trip to the beauty salon. Most women her age spent at least a couple of hours a week there, though she didn't think it would make much difference in her case. What she was lacking, essentially, was the desire to seduce.
    We left the hotel at seven. The traffic was already heavy. Valérie gave me a little nod and took a seat in the same row on the other side of the aisle. No one in the bus was talking. Slowly, the gray megalopolis woke up; mopeds carrying couples, sometimes with a baby in the mother's arms, weaved between the crowded buses. A light haze still hung in some of the alleys by the river. Soon the sun would burst through the morning clouds and it would start to get hot. At Nonthaburi, the urban fabric began to fray, and the first rice fields appeared. Buffalo standing motionless in the mud followed the bus with their eyes exactly as cows would do. The ecologists from the Jura seemed a bit restless: they'd probably wanted to take a couple of pictures of the buffalo.
    The first stop was Kanchanaburi, which all the guidebooks agree is a lively, animated city. To the Michelin , it's a "marvelous starting point from which to explore the surrounding region." The Guide du Routard , on the other hand, considers it a "good base camp." The tour program indicated a journey of several miles along the "railway of death,"' which snaked