I had left my coitus cream at the Lutétia, and this was my first mistake; I came much too quickly, and, for the first time, I sensed she was a little disappointed. She continued to move, a little, on my sex, which was becoming irredeemably soft, then moved aside with a resigned grimace. I would have given a great deal to get another hard-on; from the moment they are born, men live in a difficult world, a world where the stakes are simplistic and pitiless, and without the understanding of women there are very few who manage to survive. It seemed to me that I understood, from that moment onward, that she had slept with someone else in my absence.