Li Yu - The Carnal Prayer Mat

"Up you get and wash. You're not going to spread other people's muck all over me!"

"You have a point. That is important. But I not only slept with her, I also kissed her several times. By the same token I ought to rinse my mouth, too."

"You don't need to rinse your mouth. I don't go in for that kind of thing."

"There you go again! You mean to say you'll write a zhong below but not a lü above?" [55]

Just as he was going off to look for something to scoop the water up in, he noticed a bowl of hot water already in the bidet with a toothbrush on top of it. What a thoughtful girl! he said to himself. If she hadn't done this, she'd have shown herself a slattern, none too particular about the pure and the impure.

Fragrance let him rinse out his mouth and wash, then sat on the bidet and washed the lower part of her own body. She had already washed herself when the neighbor did, so why did she wash again, you ask. You must understand that while lying beside the bed listening to Vesperus having sex, she had been drenched in her own secretions. She was afraid Vesperus might feel the dampness and make fun of her, so she washed herself a second time. Afterward she took a damp cloth and wiped the bed mat with it. She also fetched a fresh cloth from the trunk and placed it beside the pillow, then blew out the lamp and sat on the bed and undressed, taking off everything but her breastband and drawers, which she left to Vesperus.

Vesperus put his arms around her and kissed her as he undid the band. When cupped, her breasts did not even fill up his hands, but when stroked flat they covered her entire chest. They were dainty and soft to the touch, because there was no hardness in her breast. When he took off her drawers and felt her vagina, he found that in softness and daintiness it equaled her breasts and that in smoothness it surpassed them.

He let her lie back, then placed her tiny feet over his shoulders and raised himself above her just as he had done with the ugly neighbor. He then drove in a long way, to make her suffer a little at first in order to taste a keener pleasure afterward. But, despite all his pounding, Fragrance seemed totally oblivious to both pain and pleasure.

Everything the Knave warned me about has come true! thought Vesperus. Without that gross thing of Honest Quan's, how could she have become as large as this? If I'd not had the restructuring, I'd have been like a grain of rice lost in a granary, a fish scale adrift in the ocean! How could I ever have anticipated anything like this? Since my show of force has failed to impress her, I'll have to use some strategy.

He took the pillow out from under her head, inserted it under her hips, and then, having set his new strategy, engaged her again. Fragrance, who had not yet begun to enjoy herself, saw him remove the pillow but not replace it, and she realized he was an expert.

Now, taking out a pillow and using it to bolster a woman's hips is a routine technique; why should it make him an expert? You must understand that the principles of sexual intercourse are exactly like those of warfare; only a man who can estimate the enemy forces will make a skillful general. If he knows a woman's depth, he will know how far to advance and retreat; if she knows his length, she will know how to meet and return his thrusts. This is what is meant by the saying, "The key to victory lies in knowing your own and the enemy's strength." Penises differ in length, just as vaginas differ in depth. If a vagina is shallow, a very long penis will be useless, for during intercourse there will be a constant sense of idle capacity. If the penis penetrates all the way, the woman will not only feel no pleasure, she will be in actual pain, and how can the man enjoy himself on his own? If the vagina is deep, an extremely long instrument is necessary; if it is even a little short, it will bring no pleasure.

But the size of a penis is fixed, so how can it be lengthened? In such a case one must find some way of supplementing it. The region between the stomach and the thighs needs bolstering so that the vulva is raised to meet the penis, making it easier for the man's thrusts to reach all the way. Thus the technique of bolstering the hips is to be used only in the case of a short penis and a deep vagina; one should not conclude that a pillow is essential for all intercourse. These facts explain why a short penis can be treated but not a thin one; why it is better to be short and thick than long and thin; and why the adept, in restructuring Vesperus's penis, had tried to make it thicker but not longer.

Now, Fragrance was deep and Vesperus short, so in moving quickly to bolster her with a pillow was he not proving himself an expert? The general principle is known to all, but as for placing a pillow under the woman's hips and leaving nothing under her head, that particular formula has never been understood before.

If a woman has one pillow under her hips already and another is then placed under her head, the upper part of her body, a little over two feet in length, will be forced into a concave shape. It amounts to breaking her in the middle and then piling a man's weight on top of her. Can't you imagine how uncomfortable and even painful it is? What's more, if her head is resting on a pillow, her face will be forced down so that her mouth is no longer opposite the man's, which makes kissing awkward. He has to bend down to meet her lips, while she has to force her head up to meet his. Such a waste of effort, and all because of a single pillow! Therefore nothing should be allowed to remain under the woman's head during intercourse, whether or not her hips are bolstered. A capable lover will push the pillow aside before he starts, letting the woman's hair lie on the bed mat and her lips, face, organs, and limbs all coincide with his. The upper and lower orifices differ from the other parts; they not only coincide, they fit, and they not only fit, they interpenetrate. His jade whisk enters her vagina, while her crimson tongue enters his mouth, allowing her to play the aggressor, too, and achieve a balance of sexual pleasure as well as a perfect fit.

While with one hand Vesperus removed the pillow, with the other he supported her head and laid it on the bed mat, where she faced directly upward, in the right position for kissing. That was why Fragrance was secretly pleased; she realized that he was an expert.

After placing the pillow under her hips, Vesperus raised her tiny feet over his shoulders and, supporting himself with his arms, employed all his skills and thrust as hard as he could. With each retreat he withdrew halfway, but with each thrust he plunged in to the base. There is a point worth noting here: He withdrew quickly, but he thrust slowly. Why was that? He was afraid there might be trouble if he thrust rapidly and made such a noise inside her as to alert the neighbors, so he dared not let himself go.

After a while her vagina began to feel tighter-it was no longer the vast, shapeless thing it had been-and Vesperus knew the dog's parts had flared up and his penis begun to grow. His vigor now increased a hundredfold and his thrusts came faster and faster. Hitherto Fragrance had shown no reaction, but now she wriggled from side to side and exclaimed, "Dearest, it's starting to feel nice."

"I've only just begun, my sweet," said Vesperus. "It can't be feeling nice yet. Wait until I've done some more and see how you like it then. There's just one thing that bothers me, though; I never like doing it silently, and if I'm going to get excited, I need to hear the sounds from inside. The trouble is that this house of yours is so cramped I'm afraid the neighbors will hear if I let myself go. What shall I do?"

"That's no problem. On one side of us there's a vacant lot and on the other a kitchen, where no one sleeps. So go right ahead, there's no need to worry."