Justine and the Whip (Justine)

Chris was a poet, so attentive and willing to live his own life.

So alive, so tender, so manly...

And I loved him.

I met him in the club where I worked.

He got his band there too.

For a little money he sang his poems.

Yes, because his songs were poems.

Our love was a free love and without hang-ups...

Without exclusive ties, without absolute constraints...

And we lived our sexuality without limits.

Every evening a beautiful lady came to the nightclub. Very elegant.

Her companions gave the impression of being bodyguards.

I think she was a very important woman.

I knew only that her name was Helen.

She sat at her table, in silence.

She never took her eyes off me whilst I did my striptease.

And slowly I got used to her...

And I even finished by desiring her eyes full of beseeching desire.

Perhaps I never really grew up and never stopped playing with things,

with others, with myself...

The trouble is I have always found it all very exciting.

The small and the big things in life...

Feelings, passions, vices...

May I?

Please, take a seat.

Thank you.

Waiter!

You, young lady, are very beautiful and very good.

Thank you.

You are really... really kind.

Cheers. Mm... good!

And to think every time I saw you enter I said: "What airs she gives herself."

"She must be a princess or a woman of high finance...

"or someone in politics, she must be an important woman."

And I've always wanted to be a friend to someone important.

But in fact, at this table we are all important.

For an important person I'd be willing to be... Yes, well...

A lover? - Yes, a lover.

Even if this person were a woman?

Of course! Man or woman what's the difference?

You'd better undress, don't you think?

Oh, your hand!

Oh, that sweet sensation.

How hot it is!

Kiss my breasts.

Oh yes! Continue... I like it!

Me when I make love...

I'd rather be naked. And you?

Skin against skin. What's up?

Don't say my nakedness offends you?

You know you're a very strange woman?

I like you.

Your skin... is like velvet.

Undress! I want you naked.

No! No!!

I thought he was drunk, but he didn't want to talk about it...

And I knew that Chris was another.

Suddenly the city sounded different: its noises, its voices.

Wearily I began to feel excluded from everything around me.

As if... As if something in me was being lost day by day.

And yet I struggled. Oh, how I struggled.

Desperately!

I love the sun, the moon, the stars...

I love the sky, the earth, I love the trees, the stones...

I love love.

I love men, I love women,

I love the smell of skin and the warmth of a naked body.

I love life! I love life!

I love life...

I love life...

I love life...

Chris, how much I miss your tenderness.

Your joyful life.

Your desperate existence.

How much I miss your madness!

Chris! - Justine! - Oh, Chris!

Love will come and it will have your eyes.

This love that takes me from morning to night...

Like an old resentment, like a distant dream.

Love will come and it will have your eyes.

And there will be distant memories recovered in time...

like things from another world, by now already lived.

It will be like finding a lost friend.

It will be like finding an old toy.

Love will come and it will have your eyes.

For love, one day or another, has for everyone a look.

And that day I will be happy, like a flower in autumn.

Look, Chris, it's natural that you're tired and basically I'm tired too.

It's ages since we've had a vacation and work is making us short tempered.

Why don't we go spend some time somewhere?

- Go somewhere to do what? - To start over.

I don't see what there is to start over.

Aren't we in love? - Sure. - Then that's not the point.

Oh, look... - You think it's enough to clear out to solve everything.

No, that won't solve our problems. - Oh, darling, please, don't go.

I didn't mean to upset you. You're right.

Staying or going changes nothing.

The important thing is we love each other.

And that's what counts, right? - Yeah.

Oh yes!

Get undressed. - Yes.

But by now, of Chris, the man that I knew...

The man that I loved... There was nothing left.

He no longer even he wrote his poems...

And evenings, singing in the club, his voice was that of another.

And another was that man who now held me in his arms...

No more warmth, no more love.

And I, on the other hand, need warmth.

And love! Love! Love.

I met Joe at a party at some friends' house.

I was drunk and I decided I would try to forget Chris.

Hey, why not drink? Do like me, I'm already drunk.

Oh, you're bored? Already.

Shall we dance? - Yes, of course, darling.

You know what? I want you.

You waste no time, eh?

What are you doing?

Oh, Chris, how could I have forgotten you?

How was I be able to do without you?

But I desperately tried, so painfully.

Shush...

Would you do it with us both?

Come! Come you too.

Oh, yes, that's it.

More!

Oh, yes. More...

Oh, yes...

But it's precisely because I care about the club. - Then we agree?

Okay, I agree, don't worry.

Let's have a little drink on it. We'll drink to your health.

I must talk to you. - What do you want?

Is it true that I'll soon be sacked?

Is it true? - Who said so? - Those guys over there.

It's true and you don't have the courage to tell me.

For a bit, then I'll take you on under better conditions.

You think you can take or leave me as you please?

Do what you want, if you don't like it. - Of course I don't like it.

Once I've gone you won't see me again.

Do as you please.

Then I'll clear out.

Chris left the club and went away, indifferent to everything.

But I couldn't do without him and decided to follow him...

At the cost of losing my job, the cost of being forced to pay whatever price.

Oh, Chris... you'll never know how much I have loved you!

Before that for me sexuality had always been a free choice.

Having to prostitute myself for money, in order to survive, you and I.

Filth, vulgarity...

Oh, Chris... how much it has cost me.

And I had not even a refuge in you.

Even homosexuality ceased to be a game...

And it became, for me, a means of escape.

Oh, Chris... how much I loved you!

Chris was more and more distant and inaccessible...

And I on the other hand had so much need of love.

Ingrid came to see me, an old school friend,

with whom I had shared my first adolescence wonders.

And with her I found the tenderness of the past.

The hot anxiety of first torments... when man

was still an unknown enemy to discover and avoid.

How long since we've met, Justine. It must be three years?

Maybe even four, I don't remember.

It's quite some time since I told myself: "I have to go find Justine".

But then, for one reason or another, I never found the time to do it.

I wanted to see you, spend some time with you, to remember many things...

An inexplicable desire.

I often caught myself thinking about the hours we spent together...

The things we discovered together.

I've never forgotten, Justine. - Me neither, Ingrid.

Those were good times, right? - Yeah.

Everything for us was an exciting game.