by Li Yu
Her mind was made up.
"That sort of thing is not really my line," she said. "If he comes back again, rather than your being my matchmaker, why not let me be yours, so that the two of you can enjoy yourselves a few times?"
"Don't be ridiculous! You don't mean what you're saying, but even if you did, he'd never want an ugly woman like me. If you wish to do me a favor, let me burst in on you after you've been to bed with him a couple of times. You can pretend to be embarrassed and insist that I join in, as if we were taking turns at being the banker in a gaming house. That just might work."
"I did mean what I said, and I know how it can be done, too. I noticed how awfully persistent the man can be. I tried to snub him, but I can't have been stern enough, because just before leaving he joked about trying to sneak in here tonight. Our husbands are away, and there's hardly anyone at home. Lock your place up tonight and come over here to sleep. We'll blow out the lamp, and I'll hide. Then, if he does come, you pretend to be me and sleep with him. Afterward he'll have to sneak away in the dark and will never suspect it was you in my place. Consider you're doing me a favor, as well as preserving my good name. Now isn't that a wonderful idea?"
"From what you say, I gather you've already told him he can come. I'm tickled to death at the idea, of course, and I couldn't turn it down even if I wanted to. But there's one thing I don't understand. Why would you let him come here and not go to bed with him yourself? No virtuous woman has ever behaved like that."
"I'm not acting hypocritical or covering my ears as I steal the bell. The fact is, I've already savored every bedroom pleasure there is. No one is a match for my husband where virility's concerned, and someone who has enjoyed a banquet will turn up her nose at a scratch meal. If the food's mediocre, better not try it. That's why I won't compromise."
"I know what you have in mind. Master Quan's endowment is well known around here. You've been shaped on a big last and you're afraid that a child's one won't do. So you want me to spy out the land for you. Well, I'm more than prepared to sacrifice myself, because it's no great hardship to play the spy in this case. There's just one thing, though: you must wait until I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, not come charging on to the battlefield at the critical moment, leaving me in a bind as to whether to advance or retreat. There's an old saying you ought to keep in mind: 'When feeding a priest, you might just as well bury him alive as not let him eat his fill.'"
"I'm not expecting any such luck. You can set your mind at rest."
Having agreed on their plans, the two women waited until it was time to put them into effect.
This was a momentary stroke of luck for the ugly neighbor. She has received this splendid assignment, and it is her shoe that the brand-new, freshly restructured last will be the first to shape. If you wish to learn the last's proportions, you must wait a little while until the event takes place.
CRITIQUE
Fragrance's plan for taking a lover is absolutely masterly, a variation on the principle that it's a wise subject who knows how to choose the right lord and master. How different she is from some passive observer with no purpose in mind! What a pity she met the adulterer at this stage, for the meeting will lead her to a career of good works! If Vesperus had acted three months earlier than he did, the neighbor's loss of her chastity would have coincided with Fragrance's preservation of hers. If there are any enlightened officials about who are interested in erecting a commemorative arch or shrine, I have an honorand to propose whose name is as fragrant and glorious as that of the chaste maid of "I Want to Get Married." [54] She opened up a convenient new route within Confucian morality, and for a thousand years to come all those women who, despite their disloyal thoughts, manage to avoid taking another husband will be able to look up to her as a pioneer.
CHAPTER TEN
By listening to her precursor, she finds a strong opponent; By allowing a little grace, she fosters a true talent.
Poem:
Beauty, while enjoying herself,
Should allow her lover some rest.
To spare a thought for the morrow's sport-
Mightn't that be lust at its best?
Let us tell how the neighbor went home rejoicing in her enviable assignment. She got some cloths ready for wiping up her secretions, lest they soak her friend's bedding, then waited impatiently until evening, when she locked her door and crossed the lane.
Fragrance decided to play a trick on her. "I'm afraid I've brought you here on false pretenses," she said. "I've just received a note: someone has taken him drinking and he can't get away, but he would like to set another date. You might as well go home again."
The neighbor was so upset her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed. She blamed Fragrance for not sending a message right back insisting that he come, but at the same time she strongly suspected that Fragrance now regretted the whole arrangement and wanted to get rid of her and have him all to herself. Fragrance let the protests continue for some time before explaining, with a laugh, "I was only having you on. He should be here any moment now. You'd better get ready to go to bed with him."
She heated a bowl of water so that she and the neighbor could wash their private parts, then placed an easy chair across from the bed, her intention being to lie back and listen while the other two had sex. She told the neighbor to bolt the door and stand quietly behind it, for when her visitor came, he would knock very lightly. She was to let him in at the first knock, not force him to knock again and again, which might alert the people next door. After letting him in, she was to replace the bolt before taking him to bed, where she should keep her voice down, lest he recognize her.
The woman nodded and sent Fragrance off to lie down, while she stood guard by the door. She had waited a solid two hours without anyone coming, and was just going in to ask Fragrance's advice, when in the darkness someone suddenly clasped her in his arms and kissed her. She leaped to the conclusion that it was Fragrance playing another of her tricks, this time by pretending to be a man, so she felt for the person's crotch. On reaching downward, however, she found a very large object butting at her hand and realized this was the visitor they were expecting.
Affecting a sweet, girlish voice, she asked, "How ever did you get in, dear heart?"
"Through the roof," said Vesperus.
"What a clever sweetheart! Well, now you're here, let's go to bed."
They unclasped-and undressed. Well before Vesperus, the woman had undressed completely and was lying on her back. When Vesperus mounted her and felt for her feet to put them over his shoulders, he couldn't find them; from the moment she had gotten into bed, her feet had been up and her vagina open, waiting for his penis.
I never suspected she was such a wanton, thought Vesperus. But since she is, I won't need my gentler techniques. I shall have to start off with a show of strength.
Raising himself a foot or more above her vagina, he thrust out his penis and attacked.
She began squealing like a slaughtered pig. "Oh, no! Be gentle, please!"
Vesperus parted the labia with his hands and began to work his way slowly inside. But time went by and no more than an inch of the glans had penetrated.
"The gentler I am," he said, "the harder it is to enter. I'll need to be a bit more vigorous, I'm afraid. You'll just have to put up with a little pain before you start enjoying yourself."
He attacked once more, which only set her squealing again. "Don't! Don't! Use some spit at least!"
"Spit is for virgins only; that's an inviolable rule. We'll just have to do it dry." He attacked again.
"Don't! This isn't working! If you won't break your rule, please withdraw and let me put some on."
"That would be better."
After he withdrew, she spat copiously into her palm. She then opened her labia and put half the spittle inside. The rest she rubbed on his penis.
"Now there shouldn't be any problem, but take it easy as you enter."
Vesperus, however, was eager to display his prowess and
refused to take things easy. He raised her legs and, with a sudden swish, that long, thick object of his buried itself to the hilt inside her.
She began squealing again. "How is it you intellectuals are so rough? Don't you care whether we live or die? All the way in the first time! I don't have room! Take it out a little."
"You don't have room? You don't think it's still outside surely? I'll have to move it a bit. Don't be left out in the cold!"
Laughing, he began to move again. She could not bear the first few thrusts and let out an aiya! with each one. But then, after fifty or more thrusts, nothing more was heard from her-until, after a hundred, she began crying aiya! once more, but in delight now, rather than pain. (Aiya has a range of meanings.)
After several hundred strokes she began making numerous wanton moves and uttering countless cries of passion, enough to make it impossible for a man to restrain himself. Vesperus had to speed up his onslaught and force her to spend so that he could spend along with her. But she was not without guile, for although she had spent several times already, she replied, "No, not yet," when he asked her.
Why didn't she tell the truth? Because, as a stand-in, she feared she would lose her place the moment Fragrance heard her say she was satisfied. As the saying goes, "If you're going to be robbed by a powerful official, the longer you can put it off the better."
Vesperus took her at her word and did not dare spend. But as he thrust away, he gradually lost control of himself and had to do so, contriving only to hide the fact from his partner. After that he did not dare stop, but kept going like a drunken man on a donkey, nodding his head every step of the way, with none of his former élan.
Noticing that his penis hung back from the fray, she asked, "Sweetheart, have you spent?" Vesperus was afraid she would laugh at him for his lack of stamina and felt compelled to say no. Before her question he had been getting weaker with every thrust, but now he was like a dozing schoolboy struck by the teacher who suddenly works twice as hard as before. He pulled himself together and gave several hundred thrusts in succession without even pausing to catch his breath.
She began to cry out. "Dear heart, I'm spending! I'm dying! I can't bear another thrust. Hold me in your arms and let's sleep together. Mind you don't move."
At this point Vesperus stopped and, with his penis still inside her, they fell into a sound sleep.
Although she had an ugly face, she was blessed with small feet. And although her skin was as dark as could be, it was not really coarse. That was why, during all the time they had sex together, it never occurred to him that she might be a substitute.
Let us tell now of Fragrance, who was lying hidden beside the bed listening intently to everything that went on. At first, on hearing the woman cry out in pain, Fragrance knew that Vesperus's instrument, far from being insignificant, must at least be serviceable, and she relaxed somewhat. Then, when she noted that his technique was that of a master and that he varied his pace like a man of experience, she relaxed completely. In the middle, when he slackened off, she felt a certain contempt for him, but later, when his morale picked up again and he strove harder than ever, she said to herself with deep satisfaction, "Obviously he is a hero of the boudoir, a champion of sex. What else is there to say? I need have no regrets about losing my virtue to him. I'd slip in beside him while he's asleep and explain everything, except that he hasn't seen her yet and may think she's better than I am. I'll have to find some other approach. Moreover, I wouldn't look my best without an ugly woman to point up the contrast. When a man has fought long and hard, he may not be able to rise and fight again unless you have something to tempt him with."
Tiptoeing into the kitchen, she lit the fire and ladled some water into a pot, then picked up a taper and waited until it caught before marching into the bedroom, candle in hand. There she ripped aside the bedcurtain and tore off the covers, declaring, "What scoundrel is this who has forced his way into someone's house in the dead of night and seized a woman for his lustful purposes? What's the meaning of it? Kindly get up and tell me just what's going on in here?"
Startled from his dream, Vesperus leaped to the conclusion that Fragrance's husband had been hiding in the house waiting for him to go to bed with her so that he could catch him in flagrante and extort blackmail. His teeth chattering with fear, he broke out into a cold sweat. But when he looked up, there in front of him stood the same woman he had spoken to that day and slept with that night. "Can there be another one like her in the house?" he wondered aloud.
Then he bent his head to take a closer look at the woman in his arms and found that she was an insufferably ugly creature, with a face full of dark pockmarks, hair that was short and yellowy brown, and skin the color of an unscoured Jinhua ham.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed in astonishment.
"Don't be alarmed," she said. "I've just been spying out the land for her. I'm her neighbor from across the lane, the one she was talking to the other day when you came by. She thought your looks were fine, but that you mightn't be of any practical use. She felt she'd be risking the stigma of adultery to no purpose, so she invited me over to try you out. I imagine you've passed the test and can sleep with her. By rights I ought to stay and get another reward before I leave, but it would spoil your enjoyment to have an interloper around. I'd better go off home and content myself with being the best helpmate in the world."
She got up, pulled on her jacket and trousers, and draped her underclothes and the sopping wet cloths over her arm. On leaving she addressed Vesperus again: "I may have an ugly face, but I've served you well, because this lovemaking was all my idea. The fact that we slept together was due in the first place to her kindness, but also to our being destined for each other. If you do come back, and if you have some time on your hands, I hope you will sleep with me again. Don't be heartless, now." Then she turned to Fragrance, bowed several times in gratitude to her hostess, and left.
Vesperus, who felt as if he were sobering up from a binge or awakening from a dream, thanked the Knave fervently in his heart. Without his salutary advice to needle me into surgery, I'd have been like Su Qin when he tried to make the grade in the state of Qin-I'd have failed and been driven out with nothing to show for my efforts!
After escorting the neighbor out, Fragrance replaced the latch and came back.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to leave me alone tonight," she said, "and that's why I found a substitute to wait up for you. Now that you've slept with her, I consider the account closed. What are you doing here? Why are you in my bed?"
"Not only is your account still open, I intend to add to your sins. It's past midnight and will soon be daybreak. Hurry up and come to bed. We haven't time for gossip."
"You really want to sleep with me?"
"I really do."
"In that case you'll have to get up, put on a gown, and see to a certain very important thing."
"What else is important, apart from this?"
"Don't ask. Just get up."
As she spoke, she went into the kitchen and ladled the water she had heated into a bidet, which she brought in and set beside the bed.
"Up you get and wash. You're not going to spread other people's muck all over me!"
"You have a point. That is important. But I not only slept with her, I also kissed her several times. By the same token I ought to rinse my mouth, too."
"You don't need to rinse your mouth. I don't go in for that kind of thing."
"There you go again! You mean to say you'll write a zhong below but not a lü above?" [55]
Just as he was going off to look for something to scoop the water up in, he noticed a bowl of hot water already in the bidet with a toothbrush on top of it. What a thoughtful girl! he said to himself. If she hadn't done this, she'd have shown herself a slattern, none too particular about the pure and the impure.
Fragrance let him rinse out his mouth and wash, then sat on the bidet and washed the lower part of her own body. She had already washed herself when the neighbor d
id, so why did she wash again, you ask. You must understand that while lying beside the bed listening to Vesperus having sex, she had been drenched in her own secretions. She was afraid Vesperus might feel the dampness and make fun of her, so she washed herself a second time. Afterward she took a damp cloth and wiped the bed mat with it. She also fetched a fresh cloth from the trunk and placed it beside the pillow, then blew out the lamp and sat on the bed and undressed, taking off everything but her breastband and drawers, which she left to Vesperus.
Vesperus put his arms around her and kissed her as he undid the band. When cupped, her breasts did not even fill up his hands, but when stroked flat they covered her entire chest. They were dainty and soft to the touch, because there was no hardness in her breast. When he took off her drawers and felt her vagina, he found that in softness and daintiness it equaled her breasts and that in smoothness it surpassed them.
He let her lie back, then placed her tiny feet over his shoulders and raised himself above her just as he had done with the ugly neighbor. He then drove in a long way, to make her suffer a little at first in order to taste a keener pleasure afterward. But, despite all his pounding, Fragrance seemed totally oblivious to both pain and pleasure.
Everything the Knave warned me about has come true! thought Vesperus. Without that gross thing of Honest Quan's, how could she have become as large as this? If I'd not had the restructuring, I'd have been like a grain of rice lost in a granary, a fish scale adrift in the ocean! How could I ever have anticipated anything like this? Since my show of force has failed to impress her, I'll have to use some strategy.
He took the pillow out from under her head, inserted it under her hips, and then, having set his new strategy, engaged her again. Fragrance, who had not yet begun to enjoy herself, saw him remove the pillow but not replace it, and she realized he was an expert.