Page 90 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
for I was still afraid that the gravity of this admission might remind him of the gravity of his functions. With a smile and a somewhat lecherous air I said, “What do you expect? I like good−looking guys.”
He looked at me indulgently. His manliness, protecting him, prevented cruelty.
“What if I'd grilled you the other day?”
“That would have really made me feel bad.”
But I refrained from saying more. Had I gone on in this tone, I would have admitted not only to a passing fancy but to so deep a love that it would have wounded the detective's modesty.
“You'll get over it,” he said with a laugh. “I hope so.”
However, he was not aware that, beside him, at the bar, crushed by his huskiness and assurance, I was excited chiefly by the invisible presence of his inspector's badge. That metal object had for me the power of a cigarette−lighter in the fingers of a workman, of a belt−buckle, of a safety−catch, of a calliper, objects in which the quality of males is violently concentrated. Had I been alone with him in a dark corner, I might have been bold enough to graze the cloth, to slip my hand under the lapel where cops usually wear the badge, and I would have then experienced the same trembling as if I had been opening his fly. His virility was centered in that badge as much as in his prick.
Had the latter been roused beneath my fingers, it would have drawn from the badge such force that it might have swelled up and taken on monstrous proportions.
“Can I see you again?” “Sure, drop in and say hello.”
Lest my eagerness irritate him, I refrained from seeing him for a few days. We finally became fond of each other. He introduced me to his wife. I was happy. One evening, as we walked along the embankments of the Joliette, the solitude which suddenly sprang up about us, the proximity of Fort Saint−Jean, packed with men of the Foreign Legion, the maddening desolateness of the port (the most heart−breaking thing that could happen to me was to be with him in that place), suddenly made me extremely bold. I was lucid enough to notice that his pace slowed up as I drew near him. With trembling hand I clumsily touched his thigh; then, not knowing how to go on, I used mechanically the formula with which approached timid queers.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Eh? Look, mine says noon.”
He laughed, for he had a stiff hard−on.
I saw him frequently. I would walk beside him in the street, keeping in step with him. If it was broad daylight, I would place myself so that he projected his shadow on my body. This simple game filled me with joy.
I continued as before, robbing the queer who picked me for the night. The whores of the Rue de la Bouterie (the quarter had not yet been destroyed) bought the objects I stole. I was no different. Perhaps I was a little too ready to take out my brand new identity card (which he himself had stamped at police headquarters) and flash
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