The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

by Li Yu

  In her anxiety to secure the commission, the matchmaker was driven to try any means, no matter how devious, so she came to Vesperus's defense with the ingenious argument that his desire for a viewing had nothing to do with beauty but sprang solely from a concern that the daughter might be flighty and have inauspicious features and prove in the long run not to be a good wife. "But lately he has heard how strict her upbringing has been and what a paragon of the feminine virtues she is, and that is why he has changed his mind and sent me here with this proposal."

  Convinced by her reasoning, the Master agreed to the match and chose an auspicious date for the wedding. Despite the matchmaker's report and the immortal's poem, Vesperus still felt some qualms, not having seen Jade Scent himself. Not until the wedding night, when, after exchanging their bows, they entered the bridal chamber and he got a close-up view of her, did he exult in his good fortune.

  What was the bride's beauty like? Here is a new lyric testifying to it:

  Winsome is she,

  And her person full of charms,

  Full of charms.

  Her tearful face, how easy to caress,

  But how hard to imitate, her frown!

  Unfit to play the bride, he fears,

  Too slight she is, to fold into his arms,

  Into his arms.

  She's soft as though of flesh alone,

  And he'll rest this night on a bed of down.

  (To the tune "Remembering the Maid of Qin")

  What was the new couple's pleasure like as they joined together in marriage? Here is another new lyric:

  Tight shut her eyes, for she's too shy to look;

  Two crimson petals on the pillow lie.

  Lips that were pursed to keep her fragrance in

  Are quickly breached at the tongue's first try.

  Her cries have ceased, but passion has no end;

  Her breast lies soaked in lovers' sweat.

  As opened eyes explore each other's depths,

  Their hearts flare hot, and hotter yet.

  (To the tune "Spring in the Jade Bower")

  Jade Scent's looks were indeed unrivaled anywhere in the world-on that score Vesperus had nothing to complain of. But he did have one grave disappointment. Abundant as her beauty was, she fell short in terms of passion and failed to please her husband to the full. Due to her father's strict upbringing and the severe example set by her mother, she had never been exposed to any of the more licentious aspects of life. Her reading, in particular, had been confined to The Lives of Virtuous Women and The Girls' Classic of Filial Piety, [32] both of which were full of strictures against the very acts that Vesperus had in mind. As a result there was a good deal of her father in her speech and attitudes, for which her husband dubbed her "the puritan maid." As soon as he said anything in the least suggestive, she would blush furiously and leave the room.

  Vesperus happened to be particularly fond of daytime sex, because the sight of his partner's genitals added to his own excitement, but on the several occasions he tried to pull down his wife's trousers, she screamed at the top of her lungs as if he were trying to rape her, and he was forced to desist. As for nighttime sex, although she acquiesced, she conveyed the distinct impression that she did so only because she had no choice. Her distress affected his enjoyment too. Because she was unwilling to try any novel or exotic techniques, Vesperus found himself able to practice only the Doctrine of the Mean. [33] When he proposed Fetching the Fire from the Other Side of the Mountain, [34] she protested that it violated the taboo on a wife's turning her back on her husband, and when he suggested Dousing the Candle, [35] she objected that it inverted the principle of the husband's superiority.

  If he did manage, much against her will, to hoist her legs over his shoulders and then, by herculean efforts, to reach a climax of pleasure, she would refuse even to call out "dearest" or "darling," almost as if she lacked the power of speech-let alone beg for mercy so as to enhance his powers. Vesperus was greatly upset, and reflected to himself, What a shame such a strikingly beautiful girl should so entirely lack the pleasure of active participation and lie there like a statue! Where's the pleasure in that? There's nothing else for it; I'll just have to put in some time educating her out of this behavior.

  Visiting the art dealer's, he bought an album of exquisite spring-palace pictures by the hand of Academician Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan dynasty. [36] There were thirty-six pictures in all, after the line in the Tang poem, "In the thirty-six palaces all is spring." He brought them home and put them in her bedroom, meaning to look through them with her and get her to understand that sexual intercourse is not a single entity but takes a multitude of forms for our enjoyment. "It is obvious from this book that those techniques I showed you were not invented by me but were practiced long ago by the ancients. I've brought you these model examination answers to prove my point."

  As she took the album from him, Jade Scent had no idea of its subject matter, but assumed it contained landscapes or flower paintings. On opening the album, she saw that the two opening pages bore a title in large script: PICTURES FROM THE HAN PALACE. There were many virtuous women in the Han Palace, she thought, and these must be their portraits; let me see what they looked like, to have been able to do the virtuous things they did.

  But when she turned to the third page and saw a man and a woman copulating stark naked on top of an ornamental rock, her face flushed and she lost her temper:

  "Where did you get such pernicious stuff? Just having it here is enough to pollute a lady's chamber. Have the maid take it out at once and burn it!"

  Vesperus put out a hand to restrain her. "This is a rare item worth a hundred taels that I borrowed from a friend. If you can afford to repay him, go ahead and burn it. If you can't, kindly put it down and let me enjoy it for a day or two before I have to give it back."

  "If you want to improve your mind, do it by looking at famous paintings or calligraphy! What's the point of looking at this sort of frivolous stuff?"

  "If this were a frivolous thing," said Vesperus, "the artist wouldn't have painted it, nor the collector have paid a large sum to buy it. It is precisely because it is the most serious subject since the Creation itself that literary men have chosen to paint it, mount it on silk, put it on sale in the art shops, and preserve it in libraries-all for the purpose of advising posterity on the right models of behavior. Otherwise, in the course of time, all knowledge of the mutual reinforcement of yin and yang would gradually be lost, husbands and wives would spurn each other, reproduction would cease, and humankind would eventually become extinct. The reason I borrowed it was not just to look at it myself, but to let you understand that this principle is what makes it possible to conceive and give birth, and also to prevent you from being misled by a puritanical father into never bearing any children. Why get so upset?"

  "I simply don't believe this behavior is respectable. If it were, why didn't the ancients who established our code of ethics have people practice it openly by daylight in front of others? Why did they insist on its being done secretly at dead of night in dark places as if we were burglars? That shows it's not respectable."

  Vesperus laughed. "You can't be blamed for these opinions. It's all your father's fault, for keeping you locked up inside the house without an experienced woman friend to tell you about sex. That's why you're so abysmally ignorant. You think I'm the only man in the world who's romantically inclined, and that all the women in the world are as puritanical as you are and never do it in the daytime but insist on waiting until night. You don't realize that every couple does it in the daytime and that every time they do so, they're open and aboveboard about it and let people know. Tell me this: if men and women didn't do it in the daytime, how did the artist learn about these techniques? How did he paint the figures so marvelously, getting them so lifelike that it excites us just to look at them?"

  "Well, my parents are husband and wife, too. Why don't they do it in the daytime?"

  "Tell me, how do you know they don
't?"

  "If they did, I would surely have come upon them while they were doing it. How do you explain the fact that in all my fifteen years I've never once done so? I've neither seen them nor heard them."

  Vesperus laughed uproariously. "You poor, benighted soul! Children are the only ones who don't see and hear what's going on. There's not a single maid or servant who's unaware of it! When your parents want to do it, they just wait until you're somewhere else before they bolt their door and set to. They're afraid that if you see them at it, your sexual desires will be stimulated and you'll start pining for a lover and fall into a state of depression; that's why they deceive you. If you don't believe me, just ask your mother's personal maid whether they do it in the daytime or not."

  Jade Scent thought for a moment. "They do often shut their door during the day and take a nap, and I suppose they might be doing it then. But the very idea is so embarrassing! You looking at me, me looking at you-how could we ever do it like that?"

  "It's ten times more enjoyable in the daytime, and the wonderful thing is that it's precisely when we're looking at each other that we get really excited. There are only two kinds of couples who ought never to perform in the daytime; but apart from them everyone should."

  "Which are they?"

  "An ugly husband married to a beautiful wife and an ugly wife married to a handsome husband."

  "And why can't they do it in the daytime?"

  "Our enjoyment depends on your loving me and my loving you, as well as on the interaction of our vital forces and blood vessels. If the wife has snow-white skin that is soft and delicate, skin like jade polished to perfection, when her husband takes off her clothes and clasps her to his chest, he will be looking at her all the while and naturally his excitement will be increased tenfold, and that thing in his loins will automatically get harder, stiffer, thicker, and longer. But suppose the wife sees her husband looking like an ogre, with dark, coarse skin. While he has his clothes on, she won't have noticed, but now that he is undressed, his ugliness will be fully visible. In fact it can't be hidden. Moreover it forms such a contrast with her own snow-white skin that what would have seemed merely ugly now looks hideous. Don't you imagine she'll react with disgust? Her disgust will show in her voice and in her face, and when her husband notices, his hardness and stiffness will automatically soften and his thickness and length shrink. Far from gaining any enjoyment, he will feel humiliated. He'd have been much better off having intercourse at night, when he could have hidden his defects.

  "So much for the beautiful wife married to an ugly husband. A handsome husband sleeping with an ugly wife violates the same rule, and we don't need to discuss it. Anyway that's why I say there are only two kinds of couples who ought not to do it in the daytime. But in the case of couples like you and me-equally white, pink, soft, and delicate-if we don't take our pleasure in the daylight and show our bodies to one another, but burrow under the bedclothes and grope about in the dark, aren't we hiding our talents the whole of our lives, exactly like the ugly couples? If you don't believe me, let's try it together and see how it compares with the nighttime for enjoyment?"

  By this time Jade Scent was half-convinced, even though she was unwilling to admit it. However, a pinkish glow suffused her cheeks and a sensual glint appeared in her eye.

  She's beginning to show a little interest, thought Vesperus. I was planning to start at once, but this is the first time her desires have been aroused and her appetite is still quite undeveloped. If I give her a taste of it now, she'll be like a starving man at the sight of food-she'll bolt it down without savoring it and so miss the true rapture; I think I'll tantalize her a little before mounting the stage.

  Pulling up an easy chair, he sat down and drew her onto his lap, then opened the album and showed it to her picture by picture. This album differed from others in that the first page of each leaf contained the erotic picture and the second page a comment on it. The first part of the comment explained the activity depicted, while the rest praised the artist's skill. All the comments were in the hand of famous writers.

  Vesperus told Jade Scent to try to imagine herself in the place of the people depicted and to concentrate on their expressions so that she could imitate them later on. While she looked at the pictures, he read out the comments:

  Picture Number One. The Releasing the Butterfly in Search of Fragrance position. The woman sits on the Lake Tai rock with her legs apart while the man sends his jade whisk into her vagina and moves it from side to side seeking the heart of the flower. At the moment depicted, the pair are just beginning and have not reached the rapturous stage, so their eyes are wide open and their expressions not much different from normal. Picture Number Two. The Letting the Bee Make Honey position. The woman is lying on her back on the brocade quilt, bracing herself on the bed with her hands and raising her legs aloft to meet the jade whisk and let the man know the location of the heart of the flower so that he will not thrust at random. At the moment depicted, the woman's expression is almost ravenous, while the man seems so nervous that the observer feels anxiety on his behalf. Supreme art at its most mischievous. Picture Number Three. The Lost Bird Returns to the Wood position. The woman leans back on the embroidered couch with her legs in the air, grasping the man's thighs and driving them directly downward. She appears to have entered the state of rapture and is afraid of losing her way. The couple are just at the moment of greatest exertion and show extraordinary vitality. This scene has the marvelous quality of "flying brush and dancing ink." Picture Number Four. The Starving Horse Races to the Trough position. The woman lies flat on the couch with her arms wrapped around the man as if to restrict his movements. While he supports her legs on his shoulders, the whole of the jade whisk enters the vagina, leaving not a trace behind. At the moment depicted, they are on the point of spending; they are about to shut their eyes and swallow each other's tongues, and their expressions are identical. Supreme art indeed. Picture Number Five. The Two Dragons Who Fight Till They Drop position. The woman's head rests beside the pillow and her hands droop in defeat, as soft as cotton floss. The man's head rests beside her neck, and his whole body droops too, also as soft as cotton floss. She has spent, and her soul is about to depart on dreams of the future. This is a state of calm after furious activity. Only her feet, which have not been lowered but still rest on the man's shoulders, convey any trace of vitality. Otherwise, he and she would resemble a pair of corpses, which leads the observer to understand their rapture and think of lovers entombed together.

  By the time Jade Scent reached this page, her sexual desires were fully aroused and could no longer be held in check. Vesperus turned the page and was about to show her the next picture when she pushed the book away and stood up.

  "A fine book this is!" she exclaimed. "It makes one uncomfortable just to look at it. Read it yourself if you want to. I'm going to lie down."

  Vesperus caught her in his arms. "Dear heart, there are more good ones. Let's look at them together and then go to bed."

  "Don't you have any time tomorrow? Why do you have to finish today?"

  Vesperus knew she was agitated, and he put his arms around her and kissed her. When kissing her before, he had tried to insert his tongue in her mouth but her tightly clenched teeth always prevented him. As a result, she was still unacquainted with his tongue after more than a month of marriage. But on this occasion he had no sooner touched her lips than that sharp, soft tongue of his had somehow slipped past her teeth and entered her mouth.

  "Dear heart," said Vesperus, "there's no need to use the bed. Why don't we take this easy chair as our rock and try to imitate the picture in the album. What do you say?"

  Jade Scent pretended to be angry. "People don't do things like that!"

  "You're right," said Vesperus, "people don't do them. Immortals do! Let's be immortals for a little while." He put out his hand and undid her belt. Jade Scent's heart was willing, even if her words were not, and she simply hung on his shoulder and offered no resista
nce. Taking off her trousers, Vesperus noticed a large damp patch in the seat caused by her secretions while she was looking at the pictures.

  Vesperus took off his own trousers and pulled her over to the chair, where he made her sit with her legs apart. He then inserted his jade whisk into her vagina before removing the clothes from her upper body.

  Why did he not start at the top and work his way down instead of taking off her trousers first, you ask. You must realize that Vesperus was an experienced lover. Had he taken her top off first, despite all the agitation in her heart she would still have felt shy and indulged in all kinds of coy pretense. He chose instead to seize the key position first and let the rest of the territory fall into his hands later, a strategy that corresponds in military terms to seizing the rebel leader and destroying his stronghold. In fact Jade Scent put up no resistance, but let him loosen her gold bracelets, undo her silk sash, and strip off all her other clothes, including her underwear and breastband, everything but her leggings.

  Why did he take off all her other clothes but leave her leggings on? You must understand that everything a woman is wearing can be removed except her leggings. Why is that? Because inside the leggings are the foot-bindings, and when women are binding their feet, they see that the lower part looks neat but leave the upper part untidy and hence unattractive. Moreover, in the last resort tiny feet need a pair of dainty little leggings above them if they are going to appeal. Without leggings, they would be as unsightly as a flower with no leaves around it, and that was why Vesperus shrewdly left the leggings on.

  After undressing her, he took off every stitch of his own clothing and then, in full battle array, parted her tiny feet and, placing them over the sides of the chair, thrust his jade whisk forward and began to drive to left and right inside her vagina, searching for the heart of the flower as shown in the first picture. After he had done this for a while, Jade Scent stretched out her arms and pressed down on the chair, gradually forcing her vulva upward to meet the thrust of the jade whisk. If the whisk went to the left, she moved left to receive it; if it went to the right, she did likewise. Suddenly it reached a place where it gave her a rather different sensation, something between a sharp pain and a tantalizing itch, a sensation that she could neither endure nor forgo.