Pierre Louys - The She-Devils

“Is it true, miss, that you've been working on the gentleman here ever since the day before yesterday without ever getting anywhere?”

“You think so, eh little toad? At ten thirty I sucked him, at eleven he cornholed me…”

“That's what you say! When I saw him in front of you he was limp as a rag and now look how I'm returning him to you! That'll be twenty francs, please. Do you want a receipt?”

Mauricette made a gesture of reprisal with her hand, but remained in a good humor and with no lack of imagination once again took up her own role in the comedy so as to keep her promise.

“I don't have any money, but that thing in your hand is worth more. You take it first, but don't empty it. Then return it to me and we'll be quits.”

Lili, at that point, had the most comic expression of any of us: a mixture of disillusion, politeness, and indifference, and taking her hand away from me, said to her sister, “That'll be twenty francs more.

Obviously, Mauricette was only waiting for a pretext to show what a good sport she was, an opening that wouldn't be a wisecrack aimed in her direction. Laughing, she embraced Lili, then grabbed her around the waist, lifted her skirts, and said to me, “Now! Take her whichever way you want!”

Another child would have found it amusing to cry, “Mama! I'm being raped!” But Lili wasn't making any more jokes and besides she had something much more important to say.

“Wait! Wait! I'm just a schoolgirl, remember! I've got my vaseline jar in my little basket!”

“Oh, what do you need that stuff for?” cried Mauricette. “Here, I'll spit on it. Hold still!” Lili took up a position as if she were going to play leap-frog and Ricette climbed on top of her, but back to front, with her behind on Lili's neck. From there she leaned down her sister's back and ran her tongue everywhere I could possibly enter. Then, holding onto her waist with her thighs, she said to me “Mama has two cunts because she has as much hair behind as she does in front. But when Lili opens her cheeks it looks like she has two assholes.”

“That's even better,” said Lili from somewhere beneath Ricette.

However, the thing I proceeded to take was still a little sex, and do I have to mention the precautions necessary? Yes, I think so. It would even be useful if I insisted on them to emphasize the moral character of my narrative. Listen carefully then, young reader, and take heed. Note that the day you try to fuck a little girl dog-fashion, if you are not very careful, you will tear her to pieces and she will survive neither your clumsiness nor your excuses. Nothing is more dangerous than to try to take a child in a posture like that. I am not saying this for the school boys who cornhole their little sisters, but rather for those who fuck them and who risk hurting them seriously if they have not read this page.

One of the most widespread of popular errors is that which concerns the deflowering of a youngster. Many men seem to think that the only way to do it is to thrust in the penis by the vulva so that it comes out the mouth. Or, on the other hand, to run it down the larynx so that it pops out between the legs. Myself, I've never tried this tour de force, however the anatomists with whom I have spoken on the subject have advised me against it. I in turn advise you the same. You can no longer say that my book isn't fit to be read by some.

God, how virtue often goes unrewarded. My prudence and my scruples will receive little recompense for this wisdom dispensed.

However, joking aside, to play in one woman while embracing another is not at all my idea of a ravishingly good time. I am so little used to deception in love that even adultery is repugnant to me, and I would ten times rather relate this story of a family of whores to you than to set down the methods by which I fooled a man one hundred times in order to make free with his wife.

Under Mauricette and I, little Lili seemed to me to be playing a completely useless role, for the least interested of the two was definitely not the one I was embracing. And this unlikely combination, this reversal of realities under the guise of illusion, bothered me so much that I made a hurried sign to Mauricette.

She asked me in a low voice that no one else could hear, “My turn now?”

“More than you know. And let's have no more of this crap about the mustard. That's finished. You're going to lose your cherry right now.”

Her face flamed with desire, she stuck out her breasts and opened her lips to cry, “Yes!” then suddenly shut them again without uttering a sound. With a sudden shift in that fantastic will of hers, she murmured, “Quick! I want to say something to you behind the door!”

Gently, with a kind little gesture, she kissed Lili, tickled her ribs, made her laugh, and pushed her into her mother's arms to keep her busy while she quickly followed me out of the room.

“Which of us feels like it the most?” she whispered, grabbing me and holding on tightly.

“Me.”

“That's what you think, but… Thanks anyway for saying it, and so much the better if you really believe it… Only, how about waiting for an hour first?”

My face paled and she saw immediately what my sentiments were before I uttered a word.

“Then I'll have to tell you everything,” she said, holding me even tighter. “Didn't you hear what mama said? I've got a cherry made out of leather like Charlotte used to have… It'll be a butchery!” Ah! She had found just the word it took to tempt me the least.

“And that's all right with me,” she continued. “The more you hurt me, the happier I'll be; but when we've finished I'll be roughly half dead… At first I wanted yea right away, but now… we're having fun… I'm enjoying myself… I don't always enjoy myself around here.”

As she finished her sentence, she lowered her head and her voice sounded almost like Charlotte's. I felt so sorry that I had made her feel sad that I promised to do anything she wanted and secretly resolved to have as much fun as she in the meantime. Since I rarely resolve to do something in this manner, I like to do it, when the occasion does occur, with temerity.

Charlotte smiled when we came back in. She had only had to fix her hair, wipe off her rouge, take off her apron, and replace her ribbon with a prim little collar… And now, in her black dress and soft, sad air, she was an orphan girl given a position as governess in a family.

She sat down in front of a small table with her little charge and said without the least hope of obtaining a correct reply, “What are the provinces of Outer Mongolia?”

“If you only knew how little I really give a damn!” said Lili.

“You haven't learned your lessons?”

“Oh, yes. I learned one of them. Ill tell it to you, but first let's see the hair under your skirt.”

“Oh my God, what a brat! I suppose that because I made the mistake of letting you do that once you're now going to want me to do it every day.”

“I wouldn't be surprised.”

“I'm your governess and you're supposed to obey me. But not only don't you do that, you now want me to bend to all your caprices.”

“That's about right.”

“And afterwards you'll recite the one lesson you did study?”

“Yes.”

“Really! I don't know! I'm much too indulgent for a child as spoiled as you.”

“Oh! Quit flapping your trap!” said the little one in an outrageous voice. “That'll be enough! Don't try to give me any more shit! Shut your mouth, open your legs, show me what you've got there and swallow the rest of that claptrap. When I ask to see a cunt I'm talking about part of you, not all of you.”

And Charlotte fell silent. Her laugh was as quick to come as her tears and, clapping a hand over her mouth to suppress it, she lifted her skirts and let Lili wander off into her own fantasies of improvisation.