Tableaux Vivants

GOOSEFLESH

She was simple in everything, simple as a child. She said at every turn, “I am simplicity itself.”

This simple person was in truth doubly a wanton. I will only designate her by her Christian name, Pauline. Perhaps you will guess the name of her husband. He is a man very high in office.

I loved her. One morning I received an anonymous letter, which warned me that my chaste mistress was making love to Baptiste, her footman. I believed it, for I knew her capable of sleeping with every man on earth and seeking for lovers on the moon itself. This was why I received her a little coldly when she called on me the next day. I should willingly have closed the door against her, but she entered-simply.

She was enveloped in a long fur mantle, which she threw over an easy chair; she did the same with her hat, and came to sit at my side on an easy chair, with an innocent and at the same time deliberate air-quite simply.

“Good morning, dear,” she said to me. “I wished to come and spend a day, a whole delightful day with you. Simple as I am, I could not resist it.”

“Your simplicity is then already satiated with the ingenuity of your valet Baptiste?” I asked her, looking her straight in the eyes.

“Baptiste?” said she. “I have no longer a valet of that name-and if I had, what do you mean?”

Her hands at the same time commenced wandering. And I! O the cowardice of a man who feels the sting of pleasure-mine followed her example.

“Parbleu!” I said to my faithless one, “your dress is very heavy.”

“I will take it off,” she replied-simply.

Simple in all things, she always wore plain chemises of linen like a boarding-school girl. It gave her outwardly a most piquant feel of chilliness; she had not taken time to warm herself before the fire, she was all gooseflesh. This reddened flesh made me feel pity for her. She perceived it well enough, the hussy, and came to seat herself with her naked backside on my knees, her face turned towards the hearth. And all so simply!

Ah! but this wife of a high functionary understood well enough how to take off a gentleman's trousers quickly! Holding in her hand the object of her envy, Pauline-simply-passed it under her, and wished to plant it in her.

The sword did not enter the sheath so easily. What an astonishing sheath! It opened itself the first time that one penetrated it, but resisted the second. The pleasure swelled it, and placed a bourrelet at the entrance. It was necessary then to thrust, to force one's way in. The swelling even further increased. You would have said that it was a tumefied wound whose sides contracted themselves at the surgeon's touch. It was a sensation at once cruel and delicious. The noble strumpet writhed, cried out, frothed. Ah! it was a fine work!

She was both tall and plump; she completely covered and enveloped her man. When I had penetrated into her womb after great efforts and some complaints, she began to show off her talents. Rolling and pitching, movements in front and behind, what manoeuvres! Suddenly she drew away from me. My lady feared above all things having a child. Allowing herself to slip down to my knees, she quickly swallowed what had just encoynted her. My semen spirted forth between her lips. Wiping them with her hair, which had become loosened, “May not one do anything to her lover, although one is simple?” she said to me.

I very willingly gave her the bill of indemnity which she demanded for what she had done. But now that my desires were assuaged, my anger returned, and I began afresh to think about M. Baptiste. Pauline, however, remaining squatted on my knees, played with my sword, stiff enough a short time ago, but now nothing but a flexible reed.

“Richard, what is the name of this?” she said to me.

I did not reply.

“Its name! Tell me its true name!” she repeated, kissing it.

“It is a prickle,” I answered her harshly; “don't you know that?”

“A prickle, a prickle,” she repeated. “And that?”

At the same time she raised herself and placed my hand between her thighs, already quivering at the idea of a fresh conflict.

“That,” I cried, “is a hospital! It is a brothel, a public place. It is a vessel without a bottom, an abyss! It is the puddle in which M. Baptiste wallows! Strumpet, prostituted to your servants! Infamous harlot!”

I stopped myself, for I saw Pauline's eyes full of tears. She let herself fall again to my knees.

“Well, yes!” she said to me. “It was in the country. I admit it, simply. That night-I was alone-a storm was brewing-I felt in every part of me this storm burning-and little Baptiste was in the antechamber! But I have turned him away since.”

“Enough!” I cried to her.

I snatched up my cane, I struck her. Pauline ran round the room, she fell on the sofa, her face against the wall. I dragged her away, I tore off her shift, bared her loins and buttocks, and redoubled my blows. My cane left long red marks on this lascivious flesh, which I was torturing and yet which I adored. Pauline bit the sofa cushion to stifle her cries, and her whole body writhed itself into such lustful postures that my anger was speedily changed to another kind of intoxication. I flung my cane away- Ah! if you wish to make yourself stiff, flog your mistress!

“Pauline,” said I to this admirable little whore whilst raking her from behind, “forgive me, and let us mount to heaven.”

“Ah! Ah! I forgive you-simply,” murmured Pauline.

This coynte without its like, already so greatly heated by our first engagement, swelled and puffed itself out to such a degree at the second that my member only came out by a terrible effort, and with a noise like a cork drawn from the neck of a champagne bottle.