She smiles:
"Other times you must be more than stoical. Naturally, you don't remember the first time I kissed
you?"
"Yes, very clearly," I say triumphantly, "it was in Kew Gardens, by the banks of the Thames."
"But what you never knew was that I was sitting on a patch of nettles: my dress was up, my
thighs were covered with stings, and every time I made the slightest movement I was stung again.
Well, stoicism wouldn't have been enough there. You didn't bother me at all, I had no particular desire
for your lips, the kiss I was going to give you was much more important, it was an engagement, a pact.
So you understand that this pain was irrelevant, I wasn't allowed to think about my thighs at a time like
that. It wasn't enough not to show my suffering: it was necessary not to suffer."
She looks at me proudly, still surprised at what she had done.
"For more than twenty minutes, all the time you were insisting on having the kiss I had decided to
give you, all the time I had you begging me—because I had to give it to you according to form—I
managed to anaesthetize myself completely. And God knows I have a sensitive skin: I felt nothing
until we got up."