Tableaux Vivants

ON A THRONE

To be accosted in the evening by a duenna who hands you a letter, to be invited to enter a carriage and be conducted to a rendezvous, a bandage over your eyes, is what seldom comes to one; it is what happened to me one December night.

A light and perfumed hand raised my bandage; but the room into which I had been introduced was darkened. I felt in my arms a body fresher than morning roses, slightly clad in a cambric dressing gown. Kisses flew; the sacrifice was consummated in the obscurity on a satin couch.

When all was finished, my mysterious lover took me by the hand and conducted me to an apartment brilliantly lighted and sumptuously furnished. I saw plainly that I had to do with a very great lady; I believed myself in the tour de Nesle.

“I am the Princess de Schleis-Sondershausen-Loerrach,” she said to me. “I have the title of Most Serene Highness. The Prince, my husband, sends each year the fourth part of a deputy to the Diet, and three soldiers as his contingent to the great federal army. We have in all thirty-one thousand subjects. Our particular army is composed of ten superb men, and a general, two colonels, four captains, and eight lieutenants. When I pass it in review, I believe myself in a dream; for at last I am a Princess, and it is none the less true that I came into the world in a stable, and that I lost my maidenhead by the work of Jean-Pierre under a hazel tree.

“Mine are singular adventures. I will relate them to you some day. I think it is right first to present to you their heroine.”

“Good!” said I. “Your Highness forgets that I know her already to some small extent.”

“Because you have kissed me?” said she. “Oh! that is not sufficient. You shall know me entirely, I will not stand on ceremony. From head to foot, behold me!”

At the same time she let fall her wrapper, and showed herself naked before my eyes.

“You see,” she continued, “I am tall rather than little. Although when dressed I appear quite slim, I have always had as much embonpoint as is necessary, and I do not wish for more. My figure is slender, doubtless, but well proportioned; my throat is full-it pleases all connoisseurs, even gourmands are satisfied with it. I can certainly say that I have the freshest flesh in the world. Add to this, this skin perfectly white and sweet, and so cold, especially in the region of the loins. Touch it. Is there not a particular voluptuousness in cooling your hands on my buttocks?

“I am as supple as a snake. You know already that I embrace a man with rings of steel. The pleasure does not tire me at all. That I shall show you very shortly. Does my hair please you? Do you like its fiery shade? Put aside this pretty, golden moustache, which shadows my dainty jewel, and say if it is not the most delightful jewel in France. Germany has nothing better. You cannot open it without forcing it; it defends itself: it closes, it pinches, and, above all, it burns!

“Are you content with my face? My complexion is blonde, and you cannot decide whether my eyes are blue, for the shade does not remain, but changes according to the nature of the emotions which agitate me; it is varied, like the desires of my heart.

“The court poet, a daring man, whose looks do not fear to cast themselves to the edges of my petticoats, has made two madrigals on me to prove: first, that my eyebrows are like Diana's bow; secondly, that my ears are rosier than Venus's shell I agree with all that; but, above all, it is my mouth which they love. I well believe it. Kiss me, my friend. Have you ever felt lips so savoury? And the tongue? You shall know all that this tongue can do.

“I have said nothing yet about my hands. There are none swifter, or with a lighter touch; they pass, they glide, they run, they go everywhere. As for my feet, they are two treasures- inasmuch as the leg is shaped to a turn. Contemplate these thighs a little. Yes-yes-kiss them, bite them; they are worth the trouble. I turn round. Kneel before this sublime backside; greater than thou art have done so! I do not blush to say that it is through lending this to the august tastes of the Prince, my husband, that I have acquired my rank of Highness. The good Prince would swear that he obtained my first favours! The poor man! But I am warming in speaking about myself. Come!”

At the same time she struck three blows on a silver bell. Three maids of honour entered.

At a gesture from their noble mistress, two of them approached me and set themselves to the duty of undressing me. I left myself in their hands, confounded at so much honour which was being done me. The third fetched a golden basin and a large sponge, and commenced bathing the most secret charms of the Princess. They retired. The Princess then threw herself into my arms, and, both naked, we exchanged delicious caresses. I wished to crown these preludes. But she stopped me.

“What is the use of being a sovereign,” she said to me, “if one has to enjoy like a citizen!”

She struck again on the silver bell. All the end of the room rose up by enchantment like a curtain, and a stage appeared on which was a throne. The Princess mounted its steps with a majestic air, inviting me by a sign to follow her. An invisible and delicious music made itself heard, and from behind the stage appeared a troop of admirable damsels, slightly clad with a scarf rolled round their flanks, and dancing a voluptuous step. A well-shaped youth appeared, mounted the steps of the throne, knelt before his sovereign, and respectfully kissed her Mount of Venus. A young houri of fifteen years detached herself from the group of dancers and came to kiss my member. The Princess stretched herself on the throne.

“Zenaide,” she said, “put it into me!”

Zenaide, the beautiful slave Zenaide, took my dart between her fingers and introduced it into the august coynte.

The adolescent remained in front of us, immobile. What good could his presence serve? This is what I saw a moment afterwards. The Princess, having slipped under me, stretched her hand towards the stiff member of her young servitor, grasped it, and used it as a lever with which to hoist herself up and replace herself in position; but, holding in her hand this fine article, she never loosened it. As for me, whilst I w ^as moving my loins, I felt an agile tongue which slipped itself between my buttocks. The fair houri was postillioning me.

Meanwhile the dance continued. The bayaderes had stripped off their floating scarves; nothing now concealed from me the sight of their charms. Animated by this enchanting spectacle, and by the delicious attouchments administered to my behind, I furnished tw ^o courses to my Princess without either puffing or drawing out.

“I make you Aide-de-Camp to the Prince,” she said to me.

I served His Highness Monseigneur de Schleis-Sondershausen-Loerrach for three months, and his confidence in me was so great that he often gave me his wife the Princess to kiss, whilst he himself sodomised her. I hold from his munificence the Grand Cordon of Saint-Socrate, which is, as everybody knows, a noble order.

But one day the Prince wished to change the disposition of the group, and to make me take the Princess's place-that is to say, to put me in the middle!

I left him.