Pierre Louys - The She-Devils

“Be careful,” said Lili with a straight face. “If he got a hard-on in front of Charlotte without wanting to, with so beautiful a woman as me he'll play hell trying to keep from coming!”

And the game that followed presented to me a frankly negative and therefore rather rare and interesting phenomenon. A thing that proved fascinating because it was entirely foreign to any previous known conception of mine. In other words, these short erotic scenes had as little connection with dramaturgy as with love.

And I describe it here without fear of being repetitious. Please be kind enough 'not to think that I am making up these childish programs. If you can accept my style as not being that of a primer, have the grace also not to think that these dialogues are the fruit of my imagination. I have noted them down because I felt that they were more “little girlish” than “whorish” despite their subject matter and vocabulary: a contrast I found amusing. However, like the drawings of a child, they would lose all their character under the editing pen of another.

Before plunging into it, I warned Ricette that I was once mere in a physical state less marked by ostentation and therefore less willing to be opened to ridicule. So they gave me a little respite in this direction. But not for long.

The scene began with a fortissimo, like a classical symphony.

Without the slightest preparation: “You're just leaving school, little girl?” asked Ricette. “That can't be true. It's seven o'clock. Your mother's going to give you a good scolding.”

“Yes. She already gave me a slap in the chops because I came home with a dildoe in the rear. And one that I didn't even know about.”

Lili's beginnings were always unexpected, but always prepared. Lili always directed the scenes she was in, and, of all the strange things that I saw in that family, the things she did surprised me the least. Ricette, however, was definitely surprised and had to laugh behind her hand before she could continue.

“It's still there? Whose is it?”

“How should I know? There are so many bitches that cornhole me… And since I turn my back to them, I can never recognize them. My mother was squawking all the time I was home: 'What? Not another whore of a whore who forgot her prick in your ass!' Was it you, miss?”

“Me? Me the bitch who cornholed you? Me the whore of a whore who…”

“Oh, don't get all in a lather. I said to her, 'It was on the stairway, mama.' And she said, 'Good! Go see that lump across the hall and ask if it's hers.' So here I am. I'm being very kind to come to you with it like that.”

“And I'll stick it back inside you! I've never seen such a thing, a kid coming to pay a formal visit with a dildoe in her ass. Any don't you even lick people from the front? I suppose not!”

“No! I haven't met all the different kinds of lesbians yet. Just those who cornhole you from behind and those who wash your face in their come… You fuck more with them than you do with men…”

“What? You mean you've already lost your cherry? At your age?”

“Oh, Christ! What a snob! Do I have to be a virgin to lick your ass? Why did the good God give me two holes if I wasn't supposed to use them?”

“I only use one.”

“That's nothing to brag about.”

Lili never had to look for a reply, and Mauricette, whose glibness had amused us so much before, sensed that she would fare better to quit dialogue for monologue where she shone to greater advantage.

“And if, instead of a dildoe, I give you a living prick?”

“Much better than a dead one,” said Lili calmly. “I try to stick to living ones when possible.”

“Then pay attention! If you want one, you'll have to thank me ahead of time by giving me a jolly little working over while my friend is asleep in the room next door. First of all, kisses on the face, your tongue around my ear, and your teeth in my neck. That's the beginning. Then you suck first my right nipple and then my left nipple until I say enough. After that you let your tongue wander lightly and without wetting anything around my cunt; you chew the lips of my pussy, your tongue then passes underneath and just touches my ass lightly, as if it scarcely dare do anything there, then plunges deeply inside. When it returns, it works over my cherry, seeking out all the little unknown corners and finally it attacks the snatch itself. And when I've finished coming, I'll give you a nice, handsome prick, all warm and hard, to play with.”

“Oh, miss!” said Lili unenthusiastically. “That's worth more than a prick, all that. That's worth fifty francs.”

This reply that sent Teresa off into such gales of laughter proved to me that Ricette was right when she said that Lili had the instinct for her trade. But now it was my turn to play, and I almost missed my entrance.

From her first words, Lili brought us once again back to the subject.

“Good day, sir. Your lady told me that she is really too ugly for you and that for a long time now you would have chucked her out except that she has given you other women as a distraction. Now she's obliged to dress herself up like a clown and send you schoolgirls. You're a little nutty, is that right? Oh, I don't care, mind you! I'm used to it.”

That wasn't in the original script! “The little beast!” muttered Mauricette between her teeth, but Lili continued:

“Older women like that don't know how to do anything, you know. They've got cherries all over the place and you have to turn them over and over like a pig on a spit before you can find an entry. And when they finally do learn how to do something like sucking a dick, it's so sensational that they invite their whole family to applaud as if they were swallowing a sword!”

“You'd better shut your trap, you little monster!” said Ricette, unnerved by her mother's laughter.

“Oh! Miss!” said Lili calmly. “You won't have to beat me to give your lover a hard-on. I can do that alone. Besides, I don't like torture scenes like you do. So go take a leak, why don't you. Come back in five minutes, give me the money, and I'll return the gentleman to you in good condition. Go on.”

Lili's authority was overwhelming. Even Mauricette, after looking first at her mother and then at me, had to laugh too and leave the room “to take a leak” as she had been invited.

I was looking forward to the rest of the scene with apprehension, for I did not know exactly what would be expected of me in the role of a man presented with a schoolgirl by his mistress dressed in a clown costume. I was therefore happy to see Lili once again re-set the stage, speaking with a new intimacy that surprised me.

“Ah! That's a vicious little chicken you've got there! She knows that you've slept with me. She gave me a good half-hour lesson in lesbianism and now she's gone to the toilet to finger herself and she wants you to screw me when she comes back. Even the president of the court of appeals didn't ask that much before he stripped.”

I would be relating this story very poorly indeed if I didn't note the howls of laughter that kept me from replying to this last sentence. Only Lili kept a straight face. In fact, she even seemed in a hurry, for she raised her short skirts to her waist and said, “Hurry! This is serious! If you laugh, you're going to fail me in the clutch!”

I knew it as well as she, but Lili inspired in me more hilarity than concupiscence, and Teresa's overflowing laughter made it even harder for me to get serious. I found it almost impossible to get hold of myself properly, and only the fact that Mauricette unexpectedly prolonged her absence by several minutes permitted Lili to continue the scene according to her wishes and gave her the assistance from me that was so necessary.

When her sister finally did return, Lili once again took up her role.