“Adorable woman,” I said to my friend, “knowing the position I hold in the Minister’s entourage, as I think you must, you cannot doubt that my moral outlook as regards the subjects you have been discussing is not a great deal purer than yours.”
“Certainly,” said she, “I know all the services you render Saint-Fond; I have been his friend as well as Noirceuil’s for ages—how could I help but be familiar with those two scoundrels’ debauches? You collaborate in them, and that is laudable; were I needy I’d do the same, and I’d do it happily, for I positively worship crime. But I also know, Juliette, that by laboring much in behalf of others you have, so far, labored little in your own; and with but two or three petty thefts to your credit you can still benefit from examples and lessons; so let me encourage you and steel you to more considerable undertakings, if indeed you really wish to be worthy of us.”
“Ah,” said I, “I am already much in your debt; pray continue to instruct me, and rest assured you will nowhere find a more attentive nor an apter student. I am in your hands, there is nothing I’ll not attempt at your side, guided by your advice; and from now on my whole ambition shall be someday to surpass my teacher. But, my best beloved, we are already forgetful of our pleasures: I received divine ones from you, you’ve not yet given me a chance to reciprocate, and I am keenly impatient to instill into your soul some spark of the heavenly fire you lately caused to blaze in mine.”
“Juliette, you are delicious, truly. But I am too old for you. Are you aware that I am thirty? Ordinary things have long since palled…. To be moved ever so slightly, I must have recourse to refinements so coarse, episodes so potent—ere the sweet sap rise in me there must be such a quantity of preliminaries, of monstrous thoughts, of obscene gestures, actions; and if I am to discharge, I require…. But enough; my habits will affright you, my transports will shock you, my exigencies will fatigue you….”
And then a brightness entered her eyes, a lewdness wetted her lips; she asked:
“Have you women in the house? Are they lascivious? Pretty or not, that doesn’t matter; you’ll arouse me. But I could use a bevy of tolerably roguish, immodest, patient, vigorous, foul-mouthed creatures; and they needn’t bother to come into the room if they’re wearing a stitch of clothing. How many such women can you provide me?”
“I have only four in my permanent hire,” I answered. “Four being enough for my emergency requirements.”
“That’s exceedingly few. You can’t pretend to be poor. My dear, you ought to maintain a staff of at least twenty and change them all every week, furthermore. Ah, ’tis clear I’ll have to teach you how to use the money you’re swimming in. Are you miserly? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I idolize money, I’ve often frigged myself sitting amidst the heaps of louis d’or I’ve amassed, it’s the idea that I can do whatever I like with the money before my eyes, that’s what drives me wild. I find it quite natural that others have the same taste; but nevertheless I won’t have you deprive yourself: only fools are unable to understand that one can be simultaneously niggardly and lavish, that one can love wasteful squandering upon one’s pleasures and refuse a farthing to charity. Well, then. Send for your four women; and if you wish to see me discharge, find some switches.”
“Switches?”
“Switches, rods, lashes, however you please to call them.”
“Do you whip, my dear?”
“Until blood flows, my darling. And I endure like treatment. It’s the most delicious passion I know of; none surer to inflame my entire being. Nobody doubts nowadays but that passive flagellation is of prime efficacity; it is a matchless restorative, supplying new vitality to the frame wearied by overindulgence. No wonder then that all those who have worn themselves to a frazzle in riot and sport have regular and avid recourse to the painful and invigorating operation of flagellation, supreme remedy for exhaustion from feebleness about the loins or total loss of strength, or for a cold, vicious, and oddly organized constitution. This operation necessarily implies a violent commotion in the lax or deficient parts, it procures a voluptuous irritation which heats them, and causes the sperm to leap with infinitely increased force: the keen sensation of pain in the parts upon which the blows are applied subtilizes the blood and accelerates its circulation, quickens the spirits by furnishing excessive heat to the genitals, in short, to the libidinous person in quest of pleasure provides, at such times as they are not naturally forthcoming, the means for consummating the libertine act, and for multiplying his impudicious joys beyond the limits imposed by that unkind Nature. As regards active flagellation, in all the world can there be a greater delight for hardhearted, tough-minded individuals like us? Is there another that so clearly bears the stamp of ferocity, that, briefly, more fully satisfies our Nature-given penchant for cruelty? Oh, Juliette! to break in to this degradation some youthful object, appealing and mild and who when possible is somehow related to us, harshly to inflict upon her this form of torture, all the characteristics whereof are so emphatically voluptuous, to be amused by her tears, excited by her distress, irritated by her capers, inflamed by her writhings, by that voluptuous dancing7 performed to the music of pain, to make her blood flow, her sweat, her tears, to feast upon them, upon her pretty face to mark and exult at contortions of sufferings and the twitching caused by despair, with one’s tongue to lap up those floods incarnadine so nicely contrasting with the lily fairness of a soft white skin, to feign to relent for an instant only to inspire terror the next by threats, to carry them out, and in doing so, to use yet more outrageous and more atrocious means, to spare nothing in your rage, to have at the most delicate parts, those very ones Nature seems to have created to be venerated by fools, such as the breasts or the interior of the vagina, such as the face itself—Oh, Juliette! that is joy. ’Tis it not, as it were, to encroach somewhat upon the public hangman’s domain? is it not to play his role, and by itself does not this idea suffice to provoke an ejaculation with people who, unspeakably jaded as are we, indifferent to everything simple and commonplace, must study deeply and seek far if we are to find again that which our excesses have caused us to lose? Nor ought you be surprised to discover this taste in a woman. That same Brantôme, from whom we borrowed a term a moment ago, with charming candor and naïveté offers us various examples in support of these theses.8 There was, says he, a fashionable and distinguished lady, equally beautiful and rich; for several years she had been a widow, and her moral corruption was astonishing. She used to hold parties; to them she would invite girls of high social rank, and always of exceptional beauty, it was her pleasure to undress her guests and give them fierce spankings. To obtain the right to punish them she would accuse them of imaginary misbehavior; would then beat them with switches, and her whole joy consisted in seeing them quiver and squirm beneath the blows: the more they capered about, the louder their plaints, the more abundantly they bled and wept, the happier was the whore. Sometimes she was content to bare their behinds instead of stripping them altogether naked, from the act of lifting their skirts and keeping them raised deriving yet more satisfaction than that afforded her when they were nude and hence easy prey.
“A great nobleman, Brantôme tells us farther on, also indulged in this same pleasure of fustigating his wife, either nude or with her skirts pulled up.
“A mother, the same writer assures us, had the habit of whipping her daughter twice every day, not for anything the girl had done, but uniquely for the pleasure of contemplating her sufferings. When the young thing reached the age of fourteen, she so inflamed her mother’s concupiscence that she wouldn’t let four hours go by without flogging her cruelly. Of contemporaries we have examples enough, do we not, and better ones at that; and could not your friend Saint-Fond, who never misses giving his daughter her daily lashing, serve as the subject for an entire corpus of modern research?”
“I’ve been the victim of that taste,” I observed, “but I rather fancy it nonetheless, and may well adopt it some day in my turn. Oh yes, Clairwil,
I’ll acquire all your tastes, I wish if I possibly can to become identical to you; henceforth Juliette shall know no happiness until she has taken on all your vices.”
The four women made their entrance; they were naked in accordance with my friend’s desire, and as a group they surely presented a stirring sight to lewdness. The eldest was not quite eighteen, the youngest fifteen; there were lovely bodies and most agreeable faces.
“They will do,” said Clairwil, glancing briefly at each.
Each had a bundle of switches in her hand; these Clairwil examined rather more closely.
“Very well, we shall proceed by order of age. Approach,” she said to the youngest, “come here and prostrate yourself at my feet. Now humbly beg pardon for your clumsy behavior yesterday.”
“Clumsy behavior? Madame, I don’t believe I—”
And Clairwil gave her a resounding slap across the face.
“I tell you you behaved clumsily. I order you to kneel and ask forgiveness.”
“Oh indeed, Madame,” said the little girl, falling to her knees, “I ask it with all my heart.”
“But I don’t intend to forgive you without first punishing you. Stand up and turn your ass obediently this way.”
Thereupon, having softly stroked the pretty ass with the palm of her hand, Clairwil smote it so forcefully that she left there the impress of her five fingers; tears began to flow down the girl’s cheeks. The poor thing had had no forewarning of what was in store for her, she had never experienced anything like it, this reception was affecting her dolorously. Clairwil peers at her and licks her eyes as soon as she sees the tears well forth; from her own eyes flames dart, her breathing quickens and becomes hoarse, her breasts heave in cadence with the beating of her heart. She stabs her tongue into the girl’s mouth, sucks her tongue, then, further animated by this caress, applies another blow to her ass, and this one is harder than the first.
“You’re a little slut,” says Clairwil. “I saw what you were doing yesterday, I did indeed: frigging pricks, and don’t deny it. I’ll not have you committing such outrages. I favor morality, I do, I expect modesty in young girls.”
“Madame, I swear to you—”
“No swearing, whore, and no excuses either,” Clairwil interrupted, punching the girl’s flank; “guilty or not, you’re due to be vexed, for I aim to amuse myself. Wretched little creatures of your sort are no use whatever except for providing entertainment to women of mine.”
So saying, Clairwil pinches the fleshier parts of the victim’s pretty body, this wrings shrieks from her, each of which gets no farther than her lips, for our libertine is there to collect them in her mouth. Her wrath grew apace, she gave utterance to the foulest words, they came forth spasmodically, like her gasps of joy; she bent her victim down over the couch, lubriciously investigated her bum, pried it open, thrust her tongue thereinto, then concentrated on her buttocks afresh, bit them in four places, the which the girl did not endure without much jerking to and fro and sudden starts that greatly diverted my friend and made her laugh one of those wicked laughs wherein the mischief outweighs the gaiety.
“Little bugger-fucker, you’re in for a thrashing,” says she, “yes, by the bum-stuffed Almighty, I’m going to flay you, and this cunning little shit-sump of yours is going to show every stripe for an age.”
Catching up a bundle of switches, she pulls the girl to her feet, takes her around the waist with her left arm, and thrusting a knee against her belly, bends her so that her ass is in the fairest position; Clairwil pauses for a minute, seems to reflect, to brood, then, without a word, begins to lay on and applies five and twenty stinging cuts so nicely distributed that every square inch of this formerly fresh pink ass is covered with welts. That done, she summons the other three women one after the other, has each stick her tongue in her mouth, ordering each to fondle her buttocks while embracing her, to tickle her asshole, to poke into it, to approve her punishment of the delinquent, and above all to furnish additional information upon her misconduct. After she was finished with the three girls, my turn came, I kissed her in similar wise, socratized her, praised her firm handling of the victim, and by means of a string of arrant calumnies fanned her lubricious rage against the unfortunate creature. When I kissed her, she wanted me to fill her mouth with my spittle, I did so, and she swallowed it; next, returning to work, she laid on a second series of blows, twice as numerous as the first; then, immediately, a third series, bringing the total to one hundred and fifty strokes: the little girl’s ass was but one bleeding wound. She bade the three other women lick it and convey the blood into her mouth; and she kissed me, transferring that blood into mine.
“Juliette,” said she, “the fever of delirium is taking fast hold of my senses; I must warn you that these other hussies are going to be more uncompromisingly dealt with.”
She looses the little girl and from her receives a light tonguing about the cunt and anus.
“Very well,” says she, pointing to the second, “I believe your age puts you next in line. Step up, whore.”
The latter, terrified by what has just been done to her comrade, instead of obeying, shrinks back. But Clairwil, who was in no merciful mood, seizes her by the arm and gives her several very violent slaps. She begins to weep.
“Good,” says Clairwil. “That’s what I like.”
And since this charming creature, sixteen years of age, had prettily formed breasts already, Clairwil squeezed them until she screamed; then, kissing them the very next moment, she worried them with her teeth.
“And now,” she said with a curse, “we’ll have a look at your ass”; it proved very pleasing to Clairwil’s eye and she could not help but exclaim, before bringing them under the fire of her scourge, “what splendid cheeks!”
Greatly impressed by their excellence, she rendered them new courtesies: she stooped forward, nuzzled that miracle of Nature, and sucked the hole; she rolled the girl onto her back, sucked her clitoris; then promptly returned again to her ass. But they are not slaps she now applies, they are jarring blows of her clenched fist she drives home, pounding this frail body until it is all black and blue from thigh to shoulder.
“Bugger-fuck!” cries she, “I’m going out of my mind! This little slattern has one of the loveliest asses I’ve seen in my life.”
She seizes the switches and lays frantically on; but after a few score strokes she employs a tactic she has not used hitherto. Clairwil pries open the patient’s buttocks with her left hand, so that the blows she is delivering with her right hand fall upon the exposed asshole and the sensitive sector adjoining it; wherefore it is that the entire area is soon bloody. And while all this was going ahead Clairwil required kisses upon her mouth and fingers in her bum. The three other girls and I attended to these matters; however, she would allow no one but me to swallow her saliva. The third girl was treated like the first, the fourth like the second; they were all flogged virtually to ribbons. When these ceremonies were over, Clairwil, in an ecstasy and as beautiful as Venus to behold, ranged the four girls in a line so as to compare their asses and verify whether they were all sufficiently lacerated. Finding that one had been somewhat neglected, she rained another fifty blows upon it, looked, and satisfied herself that it was presently in a state as deplorable as the others.
“Juliette, do you wish me to thrash you too?”
“By all means, yes,” I answered at once. “How can you suspect me of not passionately desiring whatever adds to the sum of your delights? Fie! Whip away, here’s my ass, here’s my body, my whole being is yours to do with as you like.”
“In that case,” she said, “climb upon the shoulders of the youngest of these tarts and while I flog you the three others will heed my orders. Take up your switches,” she went on; “which of you has the stoutest arm? You’ll be the last to operate, and you,” she said, nodding to the most slender of the three, “you shall be the first. So listen to me. This is what you are to do: You will kneel facing my ass, you will praise it loudly, unr
eservedly, you’ll kiss it, you’ll divide my buttocks, will introduce your tongue far into the hole, while doing so rubbing my clitoris with one finger; then you will stand up, and to the tune of threats and invectives, you will bestow two hundred strokes upon my ass, they must come in swift succession and in steadily mounting force; and you over there, you’ve heard what I’ve just said: when this girl is done, you will promptly imitate the performance; we begin.”
With nips, pinches, scratches, Clairwil was harrying the behind of the little girl upon whose shoulders I was perched, and in the meantime was flailing me in the most determined fashion; concurrently, the others were carrying out her instructions to the letter, and the whore, anxious to make use of everything available, was kissing the mouths of those who were not whipping her. As the stripes accumulated upon my ass the ferocious creature kissed and licked the marks avidly, and when she herself had received the number of strokes she had specified, she ordered positions to be shifted.
The eighteen-year-old girl knelt in front of her; advancing her cunt, Clairwil pushed it into the girl’s face, grinding the lips of her vagina and her clitoris against the girl’s nose, mouth, and eyes, and bidding her lick all her tongue could reach. Another girl stationed to the right, a third to the left, were vigorously scourging my friend who, swinging a bundle of switches in either hand, was avenging herself upon the pair of asses ahead of her; squatting astride the head of the girl busy licking her cunt, I offered Clairwil mine to suck; and here the whore discharged. And that discharge, accompanied by shouts and shrieks, convulsions and blasphemies, was one of the most lubricious and most voluptuous frenzies I have ever observed in all my days; the tribade fired point-blank at the pretty visage fairly engulfed in her cunt, and drenched it with fuck.