Anonymous - Tableaux Vivants

The ladies came in from all sides. One saw them enter by every door, in yellow dresses, red dresses, blue dresses. Corsages open even to the waist, and allowing the throat to be exposed and protrude itself, petticoats fastened by a single thread, ready to fall at any moment. Venus, obscene Venus, emerged quite naked from this wave of velvets, laces, and silks-naked, quite naked, absolutely stark naked.

Therese seated herself, trembling and confused in spite of her natural hardihood, at the end of a sofa. The cynical troop came wheeling round her.

“Good day, pretty lad.”

“Make your choice, my fine man.”

“See! I know who you are; I will lick thee, I will suck thee. Oh! we are accustomed to amuse the ladies of the Court!”

“Make your choice!” cried the servant.

“Come, my man,” said a stout girl who loved a joke, “you are just what I want. How much do I ask? A sovereign and ten inches! This gallant ought to be mounted as a horse!”

But a tall and strong ribald whore, who wore, why one knows not, a Swiss costume, with floating tresses, and who was called Gretchen, came and sat on Therese's knees, and passing her hand over the pantaloons of the fair one with a comical gravity, cried out, “It stands!” Then there were cries, shouts, laughter, and stamping of feet throughout the room.

“Gretchen, let him do thee in front of us!”

“In the greyhound style, in the greyhound style!”

“It stands! It stands!”

And the servant repeated, “Make your choice!” in a voice of thunder.

At a sign which I gave them, Gretchen the Swiss and one of her companions, who was called Ida, carried Mile, de Charnac away. I followed them. Therese murmured I know not what unintelligible protestations; I said to her, “It is the mode!”

In the room which we entered was a great bed entirely surrounded by looking-glasses. Gretchen set herself to the task of stripping off the trousers of her fair visitor, whose teeth chattered as if she had been led to the place of execution, notwithstanding that the fingers of the adroit Swiss were already tickling her.

Ida said to me, “Give us your little present.”

I placed four sovereigns on the mantlepiece. And as this girl was pressing round me, I showed her Therese entirely stripped of trousers and drawers.

“Everything for her!” I cried.

Speedily I beheld all three of them naked. The mirrors which surrounded the bed reflected these three interlaced bodies. The two prostitutes of the people held embraced between them the prostitute of the fashionable world. They placed her at the edge of the bed. Ida, kneeling in front of her and holding her two legs on her shoulders, conveyed the fire of her kisses to her anus. Her tongue wriggled in the path of sodomy.

Gretchen the Swiss was lying across the bed, and sucking Therese's breasts. Her mouth glided along and descended, lapping this brown skin. She opened with two fingers the gate, not of sodomy but of nature, and seized her clitoris between her lips. Therese cried out, writhed, and called to me.

“Enjoy, you little whore,” I said to her. “Enjoy till you burst, till you give up the ghost. Be licked! It is the mode!”

It was the fashion at Court at that time. They said that the Queen had a sacred troop of maids of honour whose most intimate and profound charms had no secrets for her. They said that, armed with a dildo, she had had the first fruits of them all. What remained was for the Dignitaries of the Empire.

All this Mile, de Charnac knew well.

“Haven't you a dildo here?” she sighed in a dying voice.

Gretchen sprang to a wardrobe, in which she opened a drawer. Dildoes-there were ten, there were twenty! The Swiss assured me that they were only used for the ladies of the Court. This made me say, “Have they the pox?”

But already the Swiss was armed with a magnificent article, which she had fastened to her waist, and darting on the bed, she threw down Mile, de Charnac panting under her.

These women of high rank have, as the saying goes, eyes bigger than their bellies. They must, then, have very big eyes? Doubtless. But it is also true that the artificial member of Gretchen the Swiss was enormous!

It entered nevertheless. Ida directed it with art. Gretchen thrust with measured movements.

“My friends, you are ripping me open-you are assassinating me! Ah, I am-I am quite full!”

We heard something like a cracking. Then she uttered a terrible cry.

“Do not complain,” I said to her, “it is the mode.”

Long after, very long after, until an advanced hour of the night were these games a la mode prolonged. The last stroke of the concluding part was the most piquant. In truth, they gave me the honour of taking part in it, in this manner.

Represent to yourself your servant stretched horizontally along the bed; Mile, de Charnac, or the prostitute of the fashionable world, was at the side, threaded by Gretchen after the fashion of beasts. Ida, squatted under her, licked her sweetly, and the great lady herself, throwing herself on me, sucked me with fury. Then raising herself, her eyes troubled, reeling, and giddy, “Dress me again, and let us go home,” she said to me.

When we were once more in the carriage, I began to contemplate her with admiration, as a person worthy of her rank by her luxury.

“Are you contented?” I asked her.

She raised her shoulders slightly, “Bah!” she said to me, “it is the mode!”

“Go along,” said Cora, “you boast. If you saw there, before your eyes, a young lad, beautiful and fresh-complexioned, who would present to you his backside, you would be afraid and would be off as fast as your legs would take you.”

“Ah, my dear child,” I said to her, “certainly not. One should know a little about everything, and-”

“Bah!” replied Cora, laughing. “You love women too much.”

“That is, in truth, what I am going to prove to you immediately.”

When I had proved it to her, and her loins had felt the spasm of enjoyment: “You were boasting just now,” she said to me, “you were boasting. You have not so many vices, and, even for once, you could not be a paederast. But go along!”

In the course of an hour I had forgotten this little debate. Two days afterwards, Cora wrote asking me to breakfast the next morning with her and a little friend, “with whom I should arrange in a friendly way.” These were the terms of her letter.

The next morning I arrived at the time fixed. Breakfast was served in the boudoir hung with red satin. Cora presented me to her young friend, whom she called Hyacinthe.

Hyacinthe was a tall girl, fair, plump, and with locks of the most beautiful Venetian red which it was possible to see. The idea immediately struck me that they were dyed, following the present fashion, which I liked well enough. Hyacinthe, who appeared to be eighteen years of age or more, had beautiful clear brown eyes, a great purity of feature, and a divine mouth. I asked her permission to kiss her. She gave it me without hesitation. A fresh breath perfumed me. Then Cora, bending to my ear, said to me, “You know that I am not jealous.”

We placed ourselves at table; the conversation grew warm. Cora caressed Hyacinthe, to whom she said, pointing to me with her finger, “Carry him my caresses.” The mouth of Hyacinthe came afresh to attach itself to mine. Our tongues mingled. I was ravished with so much grace, freshness, and naive abandonment.

“Hyacinthe, give me your breast to suck,” I said to her.

At that Cora went off into a great burst of laughter. Hyacinthe imitated her; the two sillies swooned. As for me, I said to them, “What is the matter?” This made them laugh the more.