“Adorable creature,” I answered Olympia, lovely to behold as she delivered her impassioned speech, “endowed with such a mind … and with such aptitudes as you have shown me, you should someday go far; I seem to find, nevertheless, that you have yet some important ground to cover. You may perhaps accept all the aberrations of lubricity, but I do not believe you are acquainted with, or indeed have even dreamed of, all those which may derive from lubricity. Although several years younger than you, owing to the infinitely wilder career I have pursued I may have the advantage in experience. No, no, my dear Olympia, you have still to learn whither crimes of lust may lead; you are, I wager, still unprepared to accept the horrors these misdeeds may involve—”
“Horrors,” Borghese interrupted, the color mounting into her cheeks, “ah! I venture to affirm I am not in arrears upon an article which you appear to esteem so essential. I would have you know that I poisoned my first husband, the same fate awaits the second.”
“Delicious woman,” I murmured, hugging Olympia in my arms, “forgive me if I seemed to entertain doubts of your character; but, blessed friend, that crime you committed, this other you project, they are motivated crimes, in all likelihood justifiable, at any rate necessary; whereas those crimes I would require of you would be gratuitous. Eh! is not crime in itself delicious enough to be committed for no practical purpose? Must we have an excuse for committing it? A pretext? And the tart flavor crime secretes, is that not alone sufficient to quicken our passions? My angel, of all the sensations in the world I do not want there to be one you have not tasted; with such a brain as yours, you would be grief-stricken to find that some sort of pleasure exists which you had not procured yourself. Be persuaded there is nothing to do under the sun that has not been done already, nothing that is not done every day, and, above all else, nothing that can conflict with the laws of a Nature who never incites us to evil save when she has need that we do it.”
“Explain yourself, Juliette,” asked Olympia, considerably moved by my remarks.
“Surely,” I replied. “Tell me: what were the principal feelings in your soul as you set about ridding yourself of that first husband of yours?”
“The thirst for revenge; disgust, hate … and restlessness, a consuming desire to break my chains, to gain my freedom.”
“And the part played by lust?”
“By lust?”
“It was silent in you?”
“Why, I did not consult it, it did not speak—”
“Well, if in days to come you should commit similar crimes, do not neglect to interrogate it as you perform. Let lust provide the spark to the tinderbox of crime; combine the one passion with the other, and you shall be staggered by the results.”
“Oh, Juliette,” the Princess whispered, gazing at me with widestarted eyes and as though electrified by my suggestion, “the ideas you put in my head…. Ah, I was but a child, little did I know, less yet did I make of my opportunity—I realize it now.”
I then represented to Madame Borghese all that a libertine spirit may extract from blending cruelty and lewdness, and developed for her, upon this great subject, all the theories you are so familiar with, my friends, and which you so superlatively put into practice. She had no trouble following my arguments and so rightly grasped the conclusions that it was with a reeling brain the rascal swore to me we would not take leave of each other before having jointly perpetrated a few of these voluptuous abominations.
“Oh, my love,” she said, and she was completely afire, “a thousand things astir inside me are telling me how heavenly it must be to rob one of our fellow creatures of the treasure of his existence, the most precious in a human being’s possession. To sever, to shatter the ties attaching that person to life, and this solely with a view to procuring oneself a pleasant sensation, for the sole purpose of discharging a little more agreeably … oh yes! this shock delivered to the nervous system, resulting from the effect of pain undergone by others, oh yes, it makes perfect sense to me, Juliette, and I have no doubt at all that the joy engendered by this concatenation of phenomena must culminate in the very ecstasy of the gods.”
It was then, while she was in a very lather of agitation, that the musicians appeared.
Ten youths aged from sixteen to twenty composed the band which now filed in; and they were incomparably pretty lads, swathed in filmy, transparent tunics draped in the Greek manner.
“These are the artists who have provided the concert,” the lewd creature said to me as she had them step up one by one; “first witness the pleasures I am going to taste with them, and afterward imitate me if you care to.”
Whereupon the two youngest of those winsome boys posted themselves, one by Olympia’s head, as she lay still sprawled upon the pillows, the other hard by her bush. The remaining eight split into two groups, four of them gathering behind the boy at Olympia’s head, four gathering behind the boy stationed near her pudendum; each of the two closest to her frigged his four companions’ members, he at her head tendered Olympia for sucking the four devices he was stroking and then when they spouted guided the spout so that it splashed upon her face. In the meantime, the one placed by her cunt turn by turn plunged into it and snapped out again the four youthful pricks in his care, and saw to it that their exhalations landed upon her clitoris; and thanks to these proceedings Olympia was very soon covered with fuck from groin to brow. Lost in a labyrinth of delicious transports, never a word did she utter but only a few sighs, a few ecstatic moans, and all her body rippled with exquisite quiverings. Once all the pricks are frigged empty, the two masturbators leap lightly upon her, one takes her in his arms, encunts her, exposes Olympia’s superb ass to his cohort, who deftly parts her buttocks and sodomizes her; while Olympia fucks, the other pricks slip one after the other into her mouth again, she resucks them, repumps them in turn, and finally, quite unhinged and shrieking, discharges like a maenad.
“So then,” said she, rising to her feet and standing triumphantly in a puddle of sperm, “are you satisfied with me?”
“Indeed,” I replied, I too soiled and drunk from the pleasure the Princess’ five serving girls had been affording me while I watched her performance, “indeed, my dear, you have done tolerably well, but better yet may be done, as I intend to show you now.”
So saying I turn to the girls and appoint them to the chore of reviving the musicians’ members. Once all ten are suitably erect, I take them in hand. They were supple, agile, responsive to the touch; I plant two of them in my cunt, another in my ass, I mouth one, two nestle under my armpits, one in my hair, I frig a pair, the tenth rubs against my eyes; but I forbid any discharging. There must, I explain, be ten permutations, each must successively visit all the shrines I make available to their homage, only then may there be any outpouring of libations. Dreadfully excited by the preludes, those ten fair youths positively drowned me in fuck, and Madame Borghese, who had been observing me while enduring intense frigging from her five girls, allowed that my method of proceeding was more skillful than hers.
“And now,” said I, “we must think of these five nimble-fingered fricatrices here; they deserve a reward.”
Disposing them in various and voluptuous positions, upon the body of each we applied a brace of young fuckers. Contrary to all principles, we clapped the grosser pricks into asses, into cunts the smaller were stowed; we moved from group to group, proffering advice and encouragements. Olympia’s delight was to snatch a prick out from wherever it happened to be buried, to suck it a while, and to restore it to place again; and sometimes when she came upon a vacant orifice, whether cunt or ass, she would thrust her tongue into it and spend a quarter of an hour licking and sucking away. And whenever she evicted a fucker, while she tongued his partner she would receive a fucking from him. More marked in my attentions than she, it was by means of smart slaps upon the buttocks and occasional kicks that I cheered on the combatants, or else I’d squeeze a testicle here, twiddle a clitoris there, or jab my thumb into an anus while whispering sm
utty instructions in an ear and biting it next. In fine, I omitted nothing apt to expedite the emission of fuck, and my interventions usually brought it forth in gushes. But those discharges occurred in my ass; for I would not for the world have let those sluts reap the fruit of my labors, certainly not, I never do anything save it be for my personal advantage and if the things I do are done well, that, my friends, is the reason why.
This scene concluded, I proposed another. Here, we would each sprawl flat upon one of the girls, our cunt covering her mouth, she would suck it while we sucked the cunt of another girl just ahead of us and presented our asses to the ten youths who, served by the remaining girl of the five, would embugger us now the one, now the other. All this was acceptable to Olympia, save that where she was concerned—and her amendment attested to a greater degree of libertinage than I would have given her credit for—she preferred to kiss an ass rather than a cunt; and the whore, of her own accord, without any prompting from me, but thereby demonstrating a perfect sympathy with my ideas, bit that ass fiercely enough to draw blood. Seeing this, I felt completely at my case, and catching hold of the breasts belonging to her whose cunt I was lapping, I wrung and wrestled with them in a way that won a sudden shrill scream from her. That was the moment Olympia discharged.
“I’ve caught you, you rascal,” I said to her, “you are beginning to detect pleasure in the commotion created by pain inflicted upon others. It is a favorable sign: we ought soon to be moving on to better things.”
After having been embuggered ten times in succession we swung our cunts around to the adversary. A girl squatting above our foreheads simultaneously gave us her cunt and her bum to kiss; with both hands a second massaged our clitoris and asshole; in the meantime we were encunted; we discharged … we wallowed in a sea of delights. Oral pleasures came next; we sucked all those lads, we got them all to discharge into our mouths; and while this was going forward each of us was having her clitoris sucked by one girl, her asshole pumped by another. Exhausted, Olympia suggested that we restore our forces; we repaired to a gorgeously lighted, luxuriously furnished dining room. A superb collation was awaiting us in a huge basket of flowers, this basket lay nested in the boughs of an orange tree laden with fruit; when I reached for an orange I discovered it was of ice. Such surprises were held in all the rest, everything showed the mark of the most refined taste and the most elegant sumptuousness. We were served by the girls; from where they were concealed behind a decoration the youths charmed us now by the sounds of their melodious instruments.
Intoxicated after our feats of lubricity, Olympia and I were shortly drunk from wines and liqueurs also.
“Now then,” I asked of my companion, whose head was reeling like mine, “what would you say to ending with an infamy?”
“Simply name it, I am ready for anything.”
“Let us immolate one of these girls.”
“This one,” Olympia answered, catching the prettiest of the five by the wrist.
“Gracious! You consent?”
“Why, of course. For what reason should I refrain from imitating you? Do you think I am to be daunted at the prospect of a murder? Ha, you shall see whether I am fit to be your pupil.”
And, our victim in tow, we returned to the circular room where our orgies had taken place. All servants are dismissed, all doors barred, we three are alone.
“How shall we torment the jade?” I wanted to know. “Instruments seem to be lacking here.”
While speaking I was examining the body of that truly superb young thing; I studied it by the light of two candles which ever and anon I would snuff out upon her buttocks, upon her thighs, upon her breasts. Olympia picked up a candlestick too; thus did we amuse ourselves for the space of an hour or so. After burning her we pinched her, tweezed her, prodded her, and clawed her a little with our fingernails. Both of us completely tipsy, without quite realizing what we were doing or saying, we vomited, belched, farted, and pissed—all that confusedly—and we tortured our victim amain. The wretched creature screamed away, but neither her cries nor our wild laughter were heard by any living soul, the precautions having been well made against it. My suggestion was that we hang the girl by the breasts and stab her to a slow death with hairpins. Olympia, whose progress was keeping pace with her lessons, agreed to everything. The unlucky girl’s agonies extended over another two hours during which we drank ourselves into a further stupor on rum and her tears. Next, my companion and I, both spent after the fatigues of lust and of cruelties, numb from our intemperances, sank upon the cushions underfoot and slept for five hours, the victim dangling between us. The sun was already well up in the sky when we awoke; I helped Olympia bury the corpse beneath some bushes, and as I took my leave of her we both declared our earnest wish to pursue a collaboration which had begun so auspiciously.
Having neglected to tell Sbrigani I would be away overnight in the country, he and my women had been troubled by my absence and great was their relief to see me return; I assured them I was well but weary, and went straight to my bed. The following day Sbrigani, who thought of nothing but money, asked what profit I supposed might be gleaned from this intrigue.
“It has already been worth a host of pleasures,” I sighed.
“It could be worth better still,” replied my serious-minded gentleman squire. “I have glanced into the matter; my informants tell me Borghese is the Pope’s familiar. We must have her introduce you to the Holy Father, we must prepare ourselves access to the Church treasures, we must drive out of Rome with an additional seven or eight millions in our baggage. You know, Juliette, I am wondering whether it was not a mistake to have adopted such an aristocratic style here, I fear lest it disserve our aims.”
“Not at all,” I assured Sbrigani; “the lofty tone, a dazzling panoply, and these titles are so many supplementary means to excite lewd covetings; their ambition will be flattered to have dealings with a woman of quality, I shall be able to triple my fees.”
“Ah,” Sbrigani rejoined, “’tis not a few hundred thousand francs more or less that is at stake here. I have my eyes on higher objectives: Pius VI possesses tremendous riches. We must steal some of them.”
“To do so, entry into his apartments must be gained, and is there any way to achieve this unless I be summoned there upon some libertine mission?”
“Certainly not; but instead of waiting idly for an opportunity we must take the initiative, we must create the occasion as soon as we can, we must get into the Vatican and fleece that beggar.”
As we were in the midst of this conversation a page in the service of Cardinal de Bernis brought me a message from his master. It was an invitation to supper at Villa Albani, several hours’ ride from Rome, and the prelate of that same name was, with Bernis, expecting me in his charming retreat.
“Juliette,” Sbrigani exhorted me, “make the most of your outing: bear it ever in mind that larcenies, fraud, imposture, those are the sole aims of our travels; to enrich ourselves, there’s our sole purpose, that’s our duty, and if we failed of it ’twould be unpardonable. To it all pleasures are secondary and likely to entice you into detours; the only road we must follow is the great highway that leads to fortune.”
Though no less ambitious than Sbrigani, quite as greedy for gold as he, my views concerning motives were not entirely similar to his. With me the proclivity for crime was the primary and compelling thing, and if I longed to steal it was far more for the sake of the pleasure which the act itself procured me than for lavishing money upon delights.
I arrived at the rendezvous decked out in all that art could add to the charms Nature had conferred upon me; my appearance, permit me to say, was lovely in the extreme.
Rather than interrupt my story, let me refrain from describing that enchanting campagna which attracts visitors from all over Europe. Those antiquities, perhaps the most precious relics that survive of classical Rome, those terraced gardens, the most exquisite, the best laid out, and best maintained in Italy—I should like to talk to yo
u about them at length; but more eager to relate facts than to trace details, I shall move directly on to events, confident that you will not be displeased by my narrative, even unadorned.