Vicomte de Valmont: I often wonder how you managed to invent yourself.
Marquise de Merteuil: Well, I had no choice, did I? I’m a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has every thought of before. And I’ve succeeded because I’ve always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own.
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Ever since I was a young boy, the power of femininity has been apparent to me. More than that, I knew from a very young age that women were the driving force of the world, literally giving birth to anyone and everyone who ever mattered, made a difference, and populated the world. We owed it all to the ladies. That they were the ones who traditionally wielded such femininity was only part of their power, and often merely the veil – easily discarded, impossible to ignore, and hazy in a lace-like dream. Growing up, I wanted to tap into the power of that femininity. I thought I could do it with the perfect perfume, the subtle sly smile and glint in my eye, or the delicate swirl of a tongue against a dripping, engorged cock. The foolish workings of a young boy’s mind – to think that being feminine could ever be so simple and stereotypical, so completely sexist, and birthed from an impenetrable patriarchy. I mistook poses for power, thought I could approximate control with the right stance, the right look, the right outfit, the right attitude. And somewhere deep inside I knew that wasn’t the real power of femininity. The sirens, the witches, the wardrobe – they all played their part, but there was so much more to it. Some days all I could do was dress it up…
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Marquise de Merteuil: When I came out into society, I was fifteen. I already knew that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learned how to look cheerful while, under the table, I stuck a fork into the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn’t pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with. And in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die.
