The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

by Li Yu

  Now, taking out a pillow and using it to bolster a woman's hips is a routine technique; why should it make him an expert? You must understand that the principles of sexual intercourse are exactly like those of warfare; only a man who can estimate the enemy forces will make a skillful general. If he knows a woman's depth, he will know how far to advance and retreat; if she knows his length, she will know how to meet and return his thrusts. This is what is meant by the saying, "The key to victory lies in knowing your own and the enemy's strength." Penises differ in length, just as vaginas differ in depth. If a vagina is shallow, a very long penis will be useless, for during intercourse there will be a constant sense of idle capacity. If the penis penetrates all the way, the woman will not only feel no pleasure, she will be in actual pain, and how can the man enjoy himself on his own? If the vagina is deep, an extremely long instrument is necessary; if it is even a little short, it will bring no pleasure.

  But the size of a penis is fixed, so how can it be lengthened? In such a case one must find some way of supplementing it. The region between the stomach and the thighs needs bolstering so that the vulva is raised to meet the penis, making it easier for the man's thrusts to reach all the way. Thus the technique of bolstering the hips is to be used only in the case of a short penis and a deep vagina; one should not conclude that a pillow is essential for all intercourse. These facts explain why a short penis can be treated but not a thin one; why it is better to be short and thick than long and thin; and why the adept, in restructuring Vesperus's penis, had tried to make it thicker but not longer.

  Now, Fragrance was deep and Vesperus short, so in moving quickly to bolster her with a pillow was he not proving himself an expert? The general principle is known to all, but as for placing a pillow under the woman's hips and leaving nothing under her head, that particular formula has never been understood before.

  If a woman has one pillow under her hips already and another is then placed under her head, the upper part of her body, a little over two feet in length, will be forced into a concave shape. It amounts to breaking her in the middle and then piling a man's weight on top of her. Can't you imagine how uncomfortable and even painful it is? What's more, if her head is resting on a pillow, her face will be forced down so that her mouth is no longer opposite the man's, which makes kissing awkward. He has to bend down to meet her lips, while she has to force her head up to meet his. Such a waste of effort, and all because of a single pillow! Therefore nothing should be allowed to remain under the woman's head during intercourse, whether or not her hips are bolstered. A capable lover will push the pillow aside before he starts, letting the woman's hair lie on the bed mat and her lips, face, organs, and limbs all coincide with his. The upper and lower orifices differ from the other parts; they not only coincide, they fit, and they not only fit, they interpenetrate. His jade whisk enters her vagina, while her crimson tongue enters his mouth, allowing her to play the aggressor, too, and achieve a balance of sexual pleasure as well as a perfect fit.

  While with one hand Vesperus removed the pillow, with the other he supported her head and laid it on the bed mat, where she faced directly upward, in the right position for kissing. That was why Fragrance was secretly pleased; she realized that he was an expert.

  After placing the pillow under her hips, Vesperus raised her tiny feet over his shoulders and, supporting himself with his arms, employed all his skills and thrust as hard as he could. With each retreat he withdrew halfway, but with each thrust he plunged in to the base. There is a point worth noting here: He withdrew quickly, but he thrust slowly. Why was that? He was afraid there might be trouble if he thrust rapidly and made such a noise inside her as to alert the neighbors, so he dared not let himself go.

  After a while her vagina began to feel tighter-it was no longer the vast, shapeless thing it had been-and Vesperus knew the dog's parts had flared up and his penis begun to grow. His vigor now increased a hundredfold and his thrusts came faster and faster. Hitherto Fragrance had shown no reaction, but now she wriggled from side to side and exclaimed, "Dearest, it's starting to feel nice."

  "I've only just begun, my sweet," said Vesperus. "It can't be feeling nice yet. Wait until I've done some more and see how you like it then. There's just one thing that bothers me, though; I never like doing it silently, and if I'm going to get excited, I need to hear the sounds from inside. The trouble is that this house of yours is so cramped I'm afraid the neighbors will hear if I let myself go. What shall I do?"

  "That's no problem. On one side of us there's a vacant lot and on the other a kitchen, where no one sleeps. So go right ahead, there's no need to worry."

  "Perfect!" Vesperus exclaimed.

  His technique was now exactly the opposite. He withdrew slowly but thrust rapidly, and when he thrust, he did so as noisily as any beggar beating on his ribs with a brick to gain public sympathy. After a spell of earth-shaking activity, Fragrance's passions were in full flow, and she kept crying "darling boy" over and over again, as her fluid spread everywhere.

  Noticing the flood, Vesperus was about to pause and wipe it up, but when he groped for the cloth, she snatched it away.

  Why did she do that? Because she had an instinctive dislike of silent sex, much like Vesperus, and, of the things she most enjoyed, her deepest pleasure came from the sound of sexual activity. In general the more the fluid the greater the sound, and that was why, even if she was streaming with fluid until her body was drenched, she would never let her husband wipe it up. Only when they had finished would she sit up and clean herself. It was an obsession with her-a singular feature that can be spoken of to the enlightened, if not to the vulgar. Seeing her reluctance, Vesperus guessed the reason and resumed his activity even more resoundingly than before. After more earthshaking thrusts she clasped him tightly.

  "Dearest, I'm going to spend. Spend with me, please."

  But Vesperus wanted to display his prowess and was not ready to spend.

  "You've convinced me of your powers," said Fragrance. "You're not a phony, by any means. You haven't stopped all night, you've taken on two women, and the effort must have drained your energies. Do save a little for tomorrow night. Don't ruin yourself and deprive me of my pleasure."

  At these endearing words Vesperus clasped her in a tight embrace and wished he could have forced his whole body inside her. After more furious thrusting they finished together.

  They scarcely had time to say anything more before it was daybreak. Fragrance was afraid Vesperus would be seen if he stayed any longer, so she urged him to get up. Then she dressed, too, and saw him to the door.

  From this point on he continued in the same fashion-arriving at night, departing at dawn-except that he no longer played the gentleman of the rooftops, but came in through the door. On one or two occasions he could not bear to leave and hid in her house all day. Fragrance told people that she was sick and could not go out or receive visitors, and the two of them went about in broad daylight without a stitch of clothing on, the mere sight of each other's snow-white flesh serving to stir their passions.

  Every second or third night the ugly neighbor would drop by. Vesperus could not very well reject her totally and would occasionally pay her some superficial attention. Although he was unable to satisfy her fully, he could not afford to let her become resentful.

  Several other neighbors had an inkling of what was going on, but they all thought it was the Knave who was the adulterer; they never imagined he would consent to act for anyone else. For fear he would get angry and retaliate, they shut their doors before dark and ignored everything that went on outside. Thus the two lovers slept together for over ten nights without the least apprehension until Honest Quan's return, at which point Vesperus's visits came to an abrupt end.

  The Knave was afraid Vesperus's youthful passions would get him into trouble, so he forbade him to go near her door even in the daytime to spy out the situation. Instead he himself would play the part of Hongniang. [56] On the pretext of buying silk, he was consta
ntly carrying messages back and forth between the lovers. On several of these occasions Honest Quan was at home, but he took the Knave for a businessman accustomed to dealing with his wife and stood aside to let them talk. Quan was a completely honest and straightforward man who never played anyone false, which is why he was known as Honest-a fact that inspires a certain faith in nicknames. After all, even Xu Shao [57] used to pin an apt label on his neighbors at the beginning of each month. Nicknames differ from sobriquets, which we select ourselves and for which we pick the most flattering combinations. When we choose our friends, we don't need to look at their character or conduct to know if they will be suitable; we need only ask what their nicknames are.

  CRITIQUE

  What a pity that a secret lost since antiquity, a formula that could not be purchased for a thousand taels, has been revealed to the public!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A housebreaking hero throws his money about, And clandestine lovers become husband and wife.

  Poem:

  Many are the robbers living in the greenwood

  Who'll meet a friend and treat him lavishly.

  Many, too, the robbers among the official classes;

  Why don't they show an equal sympathy?

  When Fragrance had been sleeping with Vesperus for ten nights or more and their passion was at its height, the affair was abruptly terminated by her husband's return. Her frustration was indescribable.

  I used to think, she said to herself, that talent and looks in a man never went together with performance. That was why I passed them both up and regarded that coarse, stupid creature of mine as such a treasure, letting myself in for a life of constant hardship to help him earn a living. I never dreamed there might be anyone who combined all three qualities. If I'd not met this genius, my beauty would have been wasted, and I'd have been no better off than the ugly woman across the way! It's no good regretting what's past, but I'm not going to waste any more of my life! As the maxim says, "An upright person doesn't do underhand things." If a woman does not lose her honor, fine. But if she does, she might as well be bold and resolute enough to leave her husband for her lover and so avoid having to divide herself between them. I've often said that you can only afford to take a lover if you have Red Whisk's eye for a hero and Zhuo Wenjun's boldness. And provided you take just one lover during your whole life and stick with him, even the words take a lover will be rectified in due course. Eventually you'll receive honors and a title and qualify as a true heroine.

  Those weak, useless creatures who scarcely manage to consummate their love and then waste the rest of their lives on their lovers, in some cases never seeing them again and even pining to death-aren't they ridiculous? The formula for taking a lover is composed of two terms, adultery and elopement, which are inseparable. If you're going to commit adultery, you have to elope. If you think you'll never be able to elope, you'd do far better to remain faithful to your husband and so escape retribution for your sins! Why batter away your honor and even your life for a moment of joy?

  Having made her decision, she wrote a letter to Vesperus proposing that they elope. As a girl in her mother's household, she had loved reading and writing, but on becoming a merchant's wife she had neglected her skills and now wrote as she spoke, without any literary flavor at all. But although she was ill versed in the art of composition, she wrote straight from the heart, unlike those talented young ladies whose letters submerge all trace of feeling under a welter of subtle implication, forcing people to read them as literary texts rather than as letters.

  Her letter ran,

  To my lover, Scholar Vesperus:

  Ever since you stopped coming to see me, I have spent all day in front of my food unable to swallow it. If I force myself to eat some, it is only a third at best. Obviously my heart and other organs must have shrunk to a fraction of their former size; it is not just my face and body that have withered until they scarcely look human. Not having seen me, how would you know the state I'm in? I have now made up my mind to spend the rest of my life with you, and you must arrange it at once. Either trouble the Knave to come and abduct me or I'll do a Red Whisk and run away to join you. Just settle the date and the place where you'll be waiting, lest we miss each other and I be lost to the fisherman who gets the profit. [58] This is very important, so take note! If you are worried about the consequences and hesitate to run the risk, then you are a faithless wretch. You may write and tell me, but from that moment on I'll break with you and never see you again. If I should see you, I have sharp teeth and they'll take a bite out of my false-hearted lover and eat it as I would pigmeat or dogmeat!

  As for all those lovers' oaths sworn on pain of death, they are just cynical ploys used by heartless women to deceive men, and I cannot bear to utter them.

  Respectfully, Fragrance, the concubine you favored with your love.

  After finishing the letter, she stood by the door until she saw the Knave walking by. But upon giving it to him, she began to worry that Vesperus would be too timid for such a dangerous venture, and she conceived the idea of picking quarrels with Honest Quan until he couldn't stand her and would be willing to follow the precedent of Zhu Maichen and let her go. [59]

  Feigning constant illness, she gave up her spinning. Her husband even had to make the tea and do the cooking. If the tea was a little cold, she would accuse him of not boiling the water, and if the food was a little tough, she would complain that he had not cooked it properly. She got up every morning at dawn and nagged steadily until evening, stopping only when she went to bed. He had to be ten times as diligent as before if he was to get safely through the night; otherwise she would order him out at midnight to make tea or prepare medicine, and that would be the end of his uninterrupted sleep.

  When they had sex, she used the same means by which she had disposed of her first husband, hoping to send Quan on his way and leave herself free to marry someone perfect in all three respects. Faced with her scorn and loathing in the daytime, Quan did his utmost to serve her at night, to atone for his misdeeds. To his dismay, however, his nocturnal efforts did nothing to make up for his daytime delinquencies. She had scarcely gotten out of bed than her whole attitude changed, striking fear into his heart before she opened her mouth. In less than two months she had so worn down her tiger of a husband that his bones stood out like matchsticks and he barely clung to life.

  When the neighbors saw what was happening, they felt indignant, but because of their fear of the Knave they were reluctant to tell Quan. He, however, noticing this sudden change in a wife who had previously been so contented and affectionate, realized that there must be a reason behind it and continued to question them.

  "Was there any outsider at the house while I was away? Did you notice anything going on?"

  At first they made out they knew nothing, but at length, under the pressure of his questioning, they took pity on him as an honest man about to die at the hands of an adulterous wife and felt obliged to respond. "Well," they replied, "yes, there was someone who made a few visits to your house, but he is not the kind of customer you would want to provoke. If you do, it will be just as the proverb says: 'An open thrust is easy to dodge, but a sneak attack is hard to avoid.' Not only will you fail to stop him, you could suffer a very nasty accident."

  "Who is this man, that he's so dangerous?"

  "None other than the dreaded, world-famous miracle thief, A Match for the Knave of Kunlun. He was passing by your house a while ago when he saw what a good-looking woman your wife is and came over and asked whose wife she was. We told him she was yours, and he said, 'What a mismatch for this woman to be married to a husband like that! Do they get along all right?' We assured him you got on very well indeed. Then later he noticed you were away on business and came and asked us, 'How long will Honest Quan be away?' We assumed that he wanted to buy some silk and told him, 'The whole trip will take ten days or more.'

  "But from then on, we heard noises coming from your house every night, as if there were people
talking in there. If it had been anyone other than the Knave, we'd have gone and investigated. But you know how it is, you'd sooner provoke the God of the Years than this fellow. [60] Even if you leave him alone, he may still come and get you, but if you offend him, you're in real trouble. Moreover, there's no provision in the law for neighbors to seize people in adultery. And so we let him come and go as he pleased. He slept there ten or more nights, until you came back and the road closed again. We're telling you this, but you've got to keep it to yourself and be on your guard at all times against revealing it to anyone else, or it will bring disaster down on all of us. Even in front of your wife you'll have to control your feelings and not give yourself away. Otherwise she'll let him know, and none of us will be left in peace. If we're lucky, we'll lose only our property; if we're unlucky, we'll lose our lives as well."

  "I saw him coming in to buy silk all the time and I was surprised he was such a big customer. So this is why! Well, gentlemen, if you hadn't told me, I would never have known, so I shall respect your wishes and not tell anyone. But the day will come when he'll fall into my hands, and when I've caught him and cut off his head, I shall ask you to back me up."

  "That's foolish talk," said the neighbors. "As the saying goes, 'You have to have the goods to arrest the thief, and you have to catch them in the act to prove adultery.' He's been a thief all his life, and he's never once been found with the goods on him. Do you really suppose that after a few nights of adultery he's going to let you catch him in the act? Now, don't take offense, but that wife of yours isn't yours anymore. If he carries her off with him one day, just be happy if you don't have to provide the dowry."

  "How could he do that?"