Pierre Louys - The She-Devils

“Good! Good! I got a good look at it this time and I know what it's like to the last detail. Now, if you don't do what I want you to, I'll tell everyone that you were trying to pervert me and that you showed it to me then.”

“What do you want from me, then, you little devil?” asked Charlotte in her sad voice.

“I'm the one who stole that packet of letters you've been receiving from your girlfriend, and I know all about it now. Nothing but filth in any of them, is there? You two have really been up to some pretty little tricks!”

“Oh, I'm lost…”

“Screw that! But no! Go ahead and say it as much as you want. It won't dirty your tongue half as much as licking my behind like you're going to do will.”

“Me?”

“Who else? And if you don't, I'll run and tell mama that you wanted to!”

Of all Lili's lines, this last one was that which surprised me the least. I have always thought that the wife of Potiphar must have been about fifteen and not forty as certain painters have imagined her. I appeal first of all to those who have lived in the Orient and second of all to you, if you know anything about child psychology, for support.

The little student obtained what she wanted from her governess without much trouble, an act which governesses and charges perform more often than parents realize.

Lili remained silent while Charlotte, on her knees before her, always ready to stoop to any humiliation, prolonged the scene. But Lili never left her role, and if she took a good deal of time before making her next crack, it was only to set it in greater relief. What the indifferent little voice finally came out with was:

“I much prefer this, my dear governess, to reciting the provinces of Outer Mongolia.”

Then she added in a kindly voice:

“Now me from in front.”

Charlotte sat down and lifted her skirt with her two hands. Lili knelt in front of her, but stopped, staring at the state her sister was in.

“Oh! You're flowing too much for me, Miss Charlotte! That's too much for a little girl my age. That's the adult dosage, not the children's… But wait… What's going on here? She's beating herself off! Hey! That's enough! No floods please!”

She took Charlotte's finger away and glued her mouth to the same spot… and the scene had hardly begun when it was interrupted by an unforeseen development in the plot.

Teresa in a dressing gown suddenly crossed the room with great strides in the role of Lili's mother and Charlotte's employer crying, “Ah! So that's the kind of lesson you give my daughter, eh?”

“Oh! Madame!”

“I put a child of ten into your charge for you to teach her history, geography, mathematics, and foreign tongues and that's the sort of tongue you show her how to use? Get into your room, Lili! And you, miss, come into mine!”

Then, out of the blue, Teresa turned to Mauricette who was sitting on my knees and said, “I don't feel like acting, I feel like coming. Also it doesn't take so long.”

Then taking Charlotte by the arm, she said in a softer voice, “A little while ago I found the packet of letters in my little girl's dresser drawer that she stole from you. Your friend treats you like a lesbian, a whore… it's terrible! She can't seem to stop talking about your tongue… She's always asking how many times you beat yourself off thinking about her.”

“Ah! Madame! Should I kill myself?”

“Don't bother.”

“Oh, I'm nothing but a poor miserable creature.”

“Confess all to me and I'll pardon you.”

“But I have practically every known vice.”

“Me too.”

And Teresa shot us a glance to show how easily she could change the drama to suit her own purposes. The conclusion of the piece was easily foreseen, and the only interesting aspect of it for me came from the fact that Lili had enough tact not to bother her mother out of revenge for the dirty trick she had played her.

She waited patiently until Teresa and Charlotte were finished, then, her imagination still working overtime, ran to them and spoke in a low voice to tell them their roles in the next sequence. She turned, at this point, and announced to us: “Second act! Eight days later!” As at the beginning of the first act, the governess and the schoolgirl sat down in front of the little table.

“You know your lessons much better now than you did a week ago,” said Charlotte. “But what's so funny? Be a little more respectful, please!”

“It's one of the hairs from your ass stuck between my teeth. It's tickling my tongue… No, maybe it's one of mama's hairs. Anyway, that's what I'm laughing at. Certainly not because you have a moronic expression on your face.”

“Lili! Come on now! Recite those two pages that you learned yesterday. What is a little girl?”

Mauricette, as soon as she heard that, squirmed around on my knees and said, “Listen to this! It's that catechism that was written for Charlotte when she was small. Lili knows it by heart!”

Charlotte repeated the question after the interruption, and Lili replied in a monotone, as if she understood nothing of what she was Baying.

“What is a little girl?”

“It's a little bitch that doesn't think of any-thing but handling pricks and cunts, that fingers itself from morning to night, that pisses everywhere, and that is always lifting its dress to show its ass so it can see the asses of others in exchange.”

“What is a little girl good for?”

“No one knows.”

“What miracle has God wrought out of the goodness of his heart to make little girls happy?”

“That miracle is the gift that nearly all little girls have of making men get hard-ons like they would in front of fully-matured women.”

“Explain yourself.”

“It's a mystery.”

“And what else has the goodness of the Creator done for them?”

“The Creator poked two holes in them and gave them one mouth in addition so that they should not be humiliated to find that they had given any man a hard-on for nothing and so that, miraculously, they can be of some use to them.”

“And in exchange for these divine gifts, what is the duty of a little girl?”

“Every little girl that gives a man an erection must make him discharge also.”

“Is it up to her to choose the hole that she prefers?”

“She has no choice in the matter. She has only to give the hole that is asked of her.”

“Should she wait for one to be asked of her?”

“No. The little girl that finds herself alone with a man should raise her dress as high as possible, excuse herself for not having any hair, and say politely: 'Would you like to fuck me? Would you like to cornhole me? Or would you rather I suck you?'

“And if the man should reply, 'Go beat yourself off somewhere else. I only screw women?' what should the little girl do?”

“In this case, the little girl should go away, but she can abstain from any form of masturbation without being considered lax in her religious duty.”

At this point, Lili left her role in the middle of the act, something she rarely did, and said to me:

“You don't think they taught me some real idiocies?”

And Charlotte immediately added, 'This is nothing for her. But me! I had to learn this at the same time that I was learning my catechism! When we got to the church I got all screwed up and I just missed reciting the wrong things to the priest about twenty times!”

Then, at a sign from Lili, they returned to their roles.

“Very good. Is that all you know for today?”

“Oh, no. I know something else. I know that the worst little bitches that walk the earth aren't little girls. They're governesses.”

“Ah! Something like that was bound to happen sooner of later! I'm only getting what I deserve. I've been saying to myself: 'What must this child think of me?'“