Platform by Michel Houellebecq

a minuscule strip of cotton, which she was slowly lifting. With a smile, she freed her breasts completely; they were swollen, round, copper-colored, magnificent. She licked her fingers and stroked her nipples. Then she put her hand on my trousers, eased down my fly, took out my penis, and began to jerk me off. People crowded past us, got off at their stations. She got on all fours on the floor and lifted up her miniskirt. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. Her vulva was welcoming, surrounded by black hair, like a gift. I started to penetrate her. The car was half-full, but no one paid any attention to us. Such things could never happen under any normal circumstances. It was the dream of a starving man, the ludicrous dream of man already grown old.
    I woke up at about five o'clock and saw that the sheets were completely covered in semen. A nocturnal emission . . . very touching. I noticed, too, to my great surprise, that I still had a hard-on. Must be the weather. A cockroach lay on its back in the middle of the bedside table, and you could easily make out the detail of its legs. This one didn't have to worry anymore, as my father would have said. My father, for his part, had died late in the year 2000, which was appropriate enough, since this enclosed his existence entirely within the twentieth century, of which he was a hideously representative element. I myself had survived in middling condition. I was in my forties—well, in my early forties; after all, I was only forty. So I was about halfway there. My father's death gave me a certain freedom; I hadn't had my last word yet,

    Situated on the east coast of Ko Samui, the hotel perfectly evoked the sort of "tropical paradise" you see in travel agents' brochures. The hills surrounding it were covered by thick jungle. The low-rise buildings, bordered by greenery, sloped down to an immense oval swimming pool with a Jacuzzi at each end. You could swim up to the bar, which was on an island in the middle of the pool. A few yards further on was a beach of white sand, then the sea. I looked around warily at my surroundings. From where I was, I recognized Lionel in the distance, splashing in the waves like a handicapped dolphin. Then I turned back and headed for the bar along a narrow bridge overlooking the pool. With studied casualness, I familiarized myself with the cocktail menu; happy hour * had just begun.
    I had just ordered a Singapore Sling when Babette made her appearance. "Well, well," I said. She was wearing a generously cut two-piece bathing suit, figure-hugging shorts, and a wide wraparound top in a symphony of light and dark blue. The fabric seemed to be exceptionally sheer; it was a swimsuit that clearly only came into its own when wet. "Are you not going to swim?" she asked. "Urn .. .," I said. Léa appeared in turn, more classically sexy in a bright red vinyl one-piece, with black zippers open to reveal her skin (one of them ran across her left breast, giving a glimpse of nipple) and cut very high on the thighs. She nodded to me before joining Babette at the water's edge, and when she turned around, I was in a position to observe that she had perfect buttocks. The girls had been suspicious of me at the beginning, but since I had spoken to them on the ferry they had come to the conclusion that I was a harmless human being and moderately amusing. They were right: that was about it.
    They dived in together. I turned around to ogle a bit. The guy at the next table was the spitting image of the Communist politician Robert Hue. When wet, Babette's swimsuit really was spectacular—you could easily make out her nipples and the crack of her butt. You could even see the slight swelling of her pubic hair, even though she had opted to cut it quite short. Meanwhile, people were working, making useful commodities, or sometimes useless commodities. They were productive. What had I produced in the forty years of my existence? To tell the truth, not very much. I had managed