Tableaux Vivants

A CHAPTER ON DANGEROUS LIASONS

The Countess Laurence was always tastefully got up and stylish in toilette, and certainly she had need of being so. Little, unnoticeable in the world, not for those whose looks know how to pierce petticoats and veils of every nature and who divine a projecting backside and robust flanks, her shoulders were spare and meagre, and her arms and throat almost lank.

But she had two great charms-a skin, sweet, velvety, warm as that of a peach exposed to the sun on an espalier, and a look always swimming with a sort of ecstacy strangely lascivious.

Nevertheless her ordinary attitude said quite the contrary to her eyes. She walked arrogantly, spoke with a haughty nonchalance, and treated men like black-a-moors. Who ever dared to raise an envious look to the Countess Laurence? She was well known to adore the Count, her husband, and to despise the rest of men.

However, connoisseurs said: Everything with this young Baucis would be to choose one's moment judiciously. This is what I thought from the beginning.

One summer day the thought struck me to go and pay a visit to Laurence. She was alone in a little room that opened onto the garden. I saw her from the distance, half lying on a sofa.

She raised herself painfully when I was introduced.

“Is it you?” she said to me. “Ah! you come just in time to close the Venetian blinds. This sun is broiling me.”

I shut the blinds, and returning, sat myself down close to Laurence.

“And Robert?” I asked her.

Robert was the Count, her husband.

She gave a slight shudder, which ran through her entire body, and closed her eyes.

“Robert is away,” she said. “Did you not know?”

I knew it well, it was that which had brought me. You know them, these solid virtues, these model spouses to whom the caresses of their husbands are their daily bread. Terrible famishings when their lord and master is away!

Impromptu enjoyments are the best. The work when one is fully dressed is delicious, because it is consummated just at the moment when one needs it. The desire is in full force, the action is prompt as the thunderbolt. “My love, we have but a minute-”. The phrase finishes itself in a kiss. The fair one throws her arms round your neck, you lay her on a sofa, you raise her clothes, and-

Modern manners, middle-class prudery, and the fear of rheumatism which threatens our feeble temperaments have stripped a great deal of the charm from this warm and lively affair. Nowadays, women wear breeches; sometimes even, these breeches are of flannel. Is there a man worthy of the name who could do the deed in these breeches? One drags them off in the best way one can. The best thing is to yield to one's indignation and throw them in the fire if it be winter. Women do justice to this ignorance.

The Countess Laurence thought she owed it to her rank to be breeched. I unbreeched her very quickly. She did not protest the least in the world. Not a gesture, not a word, not a murmur; and whilst I surveyed all her mysteries, she held her head averted on the sofa, her mouth half open, her teeth shut.

It was then that I came to know her sweet and warm skin. The sweep of her knee was not very pure, but what luscious thighs. This backside, of an abundance astonishing in so small a person, rolled under my hand. And the Countess Laurence was all the time mute as an image.

I placed my mute in position, I penetrated into her stomach. As for being narrow, it was not. But never had I felt a coynte so boiling. One would have thought oneself entering into warm froth.

“Ah, dear,” I said to her, seated by her side after this first engagement, “dear, you would have died of longing!”

I thought that the thing being done she would at last have unclosed her mouth, but no. She reanimated me ably with her hands, a little thin, a little long, all the time silent. When she saw me ready to furnish a second course, she raised herself, signed to me to follow her, conducted me herself almost to the door of the house, and showed me by the side of this door a pavilion into which I sprang, instead of putting my foot in the street.

An instant after, she rejoined me in this room, which was furnished with a bed. Laurence embraced me, all the time mute, undressed herself, all the time impassive.

No, she was not an antique statue. For instance, her breasts were as abundant as her backside, and by no means gave the idea of being two marble cups, but floated a little below her thin shoulders.

“Ah!” she said, in coming to present to me these over-rich charms, “here I am not afraid of speaking up. You can tell me your silly sayings — ” And in a lower tone of voice she added, “We can even in doing it-”

“Pronounce,” I said to her, “choose between those which please you the most.”

“Oh!” she murmured. “I dare not say it. I dearly love to-to be whipped!”

Charming desire! I satisfied her at once. I set myself to whip Laurence with the back of my hand. Her croup was soon reddened. She became excited, panted, foamed under this barbarous game. I saw her clitorising herself furiously whilst I struck. Her enjoyment was rapid.

“Again! Again!” she cried.

I recommenced to whip her, she recommenced clitorising herself. Spent, palpitating, she went and threw herself on the bed. I was not slow in following her; but, seeing her inert and bruised, I no longer hoped for anything from her, when, gliding on me, and enveloping me with her folds like a serpent, she took my dart between her breasts and commenced to rub it.

Briefly, she did me between her titties, the chaste Countess.

We did it afterwards in the greyhound fashion; we exhausted every posture. At last it was necessary to leave each other. In embracing Laurence a last time, I said to her, “You can count on my discretion, my dear.”

“Oh,” she replied, “I rely on myself taking the necessary steps to assure it.”

I left. I did not give a thought to this traitorous speech. Two days after, the Count returned. The morning after his return, I received the following note:

“You have abused a friendship of ten years to do me the last outrage. Neither the virtue nor the reproaches of the Countess have recalled you to yourself. The fear of the evil gossip of society alone prevents me from demanding satisfaction.”

Laurence had, in fact, taken the best means of assuring herself of my discretion by having me shown to the door. She had doubtless said that I had tried to violate her.