Li Yu - The Carnal Prayer Mat

What were these superlative skills of hers? The first was Lowering the Yin to join the Yang, the second was Raising the Yin to Meet the Yang, and the third was Sacrificing the Yin to Aid the Yang. [88]When having sex with a man, she did not expect him to move, but did the moving herself. First she asked him to oblige her by lying on his back. Then she mounted him, inserted his penis in her vagina, and raised herself and sheathed it, sank down and kneaded it, raised herself and sheathed it, sank down and kneaded it. If another woman had done this, her legs would have ached so abominably after the first few strokes that she'd have been unable to continue, but the Maid's knees seemed to be made of brass or iron, for the longer she worked, the stronger she became. And it was not just the man she pleased, she also pleased herself. "Having a man do the moving," she used to say, "is like asking someone to scratch an itch for you. You can be sure that half the time he'll miss the spot. But when you scratch yourself, it's simply heavenly, because you never miss." This is what was meant by Lowering the Yin to join the Yang, the first of her skills.

At other times, when she lay underneath, she would not let the man exert himself alone, but would insist on arching her body to help him. When he thrust forward, she rose to meet him; when he pulled back, she gave way. Not only did she save him half the effort, she also got fully half the benefit for herself, ensuring that her secret pass was under constant attack.

"The most delightful things in life," she was given to saying, "cannot be enjoyed on one's own. Yin must fit together with yang, yang must fit together with yin. When they happen to meet halfway, you'll naturally start enjoying yourself; that is what is meant by the reciprocity of yin and yang. If the woman doesn't respond to the man but just lets him thrust away, what's to stop him from getting a wood or plaster mannequin and drilling a deep hole in the middle of it? As long as he can enter, he'll be able to thrust back and forth, so what does he need a woman for? That is why famous courtesans have to grasp this principle if they are going to please their clients as well as themselves." This is what was known as Raising the Yin to Meet the Yang, the second of her skills.

As for Sacrificing the Yin to Aid the Yang, it was incomparably more profound. When having sex, she was most reluctant to let her finite supply of female essence leak out where it would do no good. So long as the man got the benefit, she had no regrets about spending; but otherwise she felt as downcast as if she had lost money or made a poor business deal, and afterward, when it was all over, she would be inconsolable.

What technique did she use to see that the man got the benefit? Whenever she was about to spend, she would tell him to place his glans against the heart of the flower and keep it there without moving. She knew how to maneuver the tiny orifice in the heart into precise alignment with the orifice in the glans. Since she took care to teach the man in advance how to ingest the essence, it was no sooner secreted than he ingested it into his penis and thence through his coccyx directly to the pubic region. For sheer efficacy, ginseng and aconite cannot compare with this substance, which is unsurpassed even by the elixir of immortality.

She learned this marvelous art at the age of fifteen. She was losing her virginity to a magician at the time, and he had inadvertently revealed it. Whenever she met a sympathetic client, she would instruct him in what to do, and he invariably benefited. After a few nights with her, not only would he become twice as vigorous, even his complexion would take on a new glow. People said she must be the incarnation of an immortal maid, which is how she acquired her name.

Once her clients had been taught the principle, they duly practiced it at home, where of course they had no need of her. Little did they realize, however, that people can be taught how to ingest the essence but not how to align the orifices. The key factor is the woman's skill in bringing them together, and Immortal Maid was the only one who knew the secret; others could not succeed no matter how hard they tried. The remarkable thing was that all other women were in the dark except for her, which is why it was known as a superlative skill.

When Jade Scent first arrived, it was not her reputation that drew the rich client but Immortal Maid's, as a formidable adversary. The client took it for granted that Jade Scent, as someone trained by the Maid, would be familiar with her tactics. What complicated matters was that he was grossly fat. When he climbed into bed and lay on her, he began puffing and wheezing after no more than forty or fifty strokes, so he quickly dismounted and held her on top of him while she did the work. But Jade Scent, accustomed as she was to a life of leisure, had never done anything half as strenuous as this in her whole life. She may have Doused the Candle a few times, but always with the man holding her by the hips and bouncing her up and down; nominally she was the active partner, but actually it was he. How could she make that slight, delicate frame of hers do anything as rough as this? After less than ten sheathings, her feet and legs ached so badly that she collapsed onto his stomach. The client realized that she had not mastered this skill, to say nothing of the others, and he hastily finished off and slept until dawn. But although he could not enjoy her, he was not prepared to give her up, which is why he offered his parting advice to the Maid.

The Maid assumed, as she showed him out, that Jade Scent had put on ladylike airs instead of trying to please him. 'How was she going to make any money by receiving such an important gentleman and then sending him away after just one night? The Maid armed herself with her rod and was about to start beating, when Jade Scent fell to her knees and begged for mercy. Because this was her first offense, the Maid forgave her, but scolded her severely and insisted she study the three arts by day and night. While the Maid was having sex with a client, she taught by practical example, making Jade Scent stand beside the bed and watch closely to see if she could master the techniques. And when Jade Scent was having sex, the Maid gave her an individual tutorial, sitting beside the bed and watching closely to see that her pupil was doing it right.

Where there's a will there's a way, as the proverb says. Jade Scent was forced to study hard, both from fear of the Maid's discipline and also because she wanted to make a name for herself. As a result, in no more than a month or two she had mastered the three skills. Her art was now fully equal to the Maid's, while her beauty and poetic talent were far superior, and it goes without saying that before long an endless stream of carriages was calling at her gate. Soon she was famous throughout the capital, and there was scarcely a wealthy gentlemen or young nobleman who did not come to sample her delights.

Among her clients were two gentlemen so eager to lavish their money on her that they promised her a dozen taels for a single night, a promise that made her especially solicitous.

Who were they, do you suppose? None other than Lucky Pearl's and Lucky Jade's husbands, Scholars Cloud-Reposer and Cloud-Recliner. As students enrolled in the National Academy, they had heard of Jade Scent's towering reputation and vied with each other to be the first to visit her. Without telling his brother, Reposer slept with her several nights, after which Recliner, without telling Reposer, slept with her a few nights more. Each of them, in deceiving the other, had assumed that, although she was a prostitute, she would hardly be so ignorant of ethical principle as to receive one brother after already receiving the other. Little did they realize that it is money, rather than ethics, that motivates prostitutes. Not only were brothers and classmates regular visitors under her skirts, she also received grandfathers as well as grandsons, and fathers as well as sons, transforming this one small article of hers into an ancestral shrine for three generations and offering equal access to old and young, noble and base.