The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

by Li Yu

  "No need to remind me. But it's going to be rather hard on you."

  Cloud summoned a maid to bring a lantern and take Vesperus and Lucky Pearl to the latter's room. She herself was concerned that Lucky Jade might be upset, so she chatted with her a while before going to bed.

  Vesperus and Lucky Pearl undressed each other, then climbed on to her ivory-inlaid bed and began their sport. It was difficult at first. Pearl found the pain too much to bear, but fortunately she knew from all the marvelous things she had heard that her subsequent pleasure would amply reward her for the pain she was feeling, and that in fact there was no way to get the pleasure except by suffering the pain. So she gritted her teeth and bore his onslaught. Wanting to put his priceless treasure to the test, she was constantly on the watch for it to swell and heat up and was thus far more aware of its size and temperature than another woman would have been. Eventually, as he worked, it did swell and heat up, like some enormous Mr. Horn filled with boiling water and jammed inside her. Even if he had not moved at all, simply left it there, she would have felt pleasure, but how infinitely more pleasurable it was with his rapid, lively movement! At last she realized that the account she had been given was not hyperbole and that the term priceless treasure was a fitting sobriquet for it.

  Clasping Vesperus tightly, she gave him a couple of playful taps. "My dearest, your looks must have driven thousands of women to their deaths of unrequited love! How ever did you come to possess such a priceless treasure as well? Do you want to drive every woman in the world to her death?"

  "Only by doing someone to death can you make her die of love. Dearest girl, are you willing to sacrifice your life and let me do you to death?"

  "Now that I've met this fierce creature, do you think I want to go on living? But let me do it a few more times first, and then I'll die content. Don't dispatch me on the first occasion!"

  "Tonight," said Vesperus, "my time is divided between you and your sister. So even if you die, you'll still be only half dead, and I don't suppose I shall be accused of murder. But who knows what tomorrow night or the night after will bring?"

  With that he began a series of earthshaking thrusts. Although Pearl's vagina was deep, the heart of the flower was extremely shallow, and he needed to penetrate only an inch or two before touching and teasing it, so that every thrust hit the mark. After several hundred thrusts she was in a desperate state and kept crying out, "Dearest, I'm not just half dead, I'm completely dead! Have mercy!"

  But Vesperus, who was intent on displaying his prowess, took no notice of her cries and thrust with undiminished vigor from the first watch to the second, by which time her arms and legs were limp and her breath had grown cold. Realizing she was not a strong opponent, he stopped, clasped her tightly in his arms, and slept.

  Pearl awoke after a brief sleep. "Dear one, how is it you're so capable? If I die, my death will be on your head, I need hardly say. But you'd better go now; my sister is expecting you."

  "It's pitch-dark outside," said Vesperus, "and I'll never be able to find my way. Dearest, won't you get up and take me over?"

  "I'm so limp from your lovemaking that I can't even move. I'll get a maid to show you."

  She called one of her maids out of bed to lead Vesperus over. The maid was a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old virgin who had been aroused to fever pitch by overhearing their earth-shaking activity and had emitted a good deal of fluid in the process. Now, with Vesperus's hand in hers, and under cover of darkness, she was not going to let him escape. When they came to a secluded spot, she halted.

  "How can you be so cruel," she said, "as not to let me taste any of those sweets you gave my mistress? As the saying goes, 'Passing by the paddy fields, you don't worry about drought.' Now that you're at my customs checkpoint, you surely wouldn't try to slip through without paying your dues?" Winding one arm around Vesperus, she took off her trousers with the other.

  Vesperus, realizing that she was beside herself with passion, felt he could hardly deny her a turn. He told her to lie on a bench and, after opening her vagina, took out his penis and tried to enter without rubbing any spit on it. The maid, having never been with a man, assumed that his instrument would be a delicious sip of broth, which is why she had halted, her only fear being that he might not agree to her demand. Little did she realize that the delicious sip would prove to be a cupful of hard liquor. Someone who has never tasted mustard will start coughing and choking at the mere smell of it, and she began to scream as soon as she saw him about to thrust. Vesperus realized that her seal was still intact, and he rubbed a lot of spit on his penis before trying to drive it in. But she began screaming again. "It's no good," she said. "If it's like this, it will be no fun at all. But why should something that brings the mistress such pleasure bring me nothing but pain?"

  Vesperus explained that it was necessary on the first occasion to break the skin and cause a little bleeding, but that after ten or twenty times she might expect to enjoy the experience. "My endowment is much too large for you," he said, trying to console her, "but I have a young page called Satchel, and his is still quite small. Why don't I bring him over tomorrow and let him do it with you a few times before I try again?"

  The maid thanked him profusely, then got up, fastened her trousers, and took him the rest of the way.

  Lucky Jade's quarters were brilliantly lit up. She was waiting for him and, on hearing footsteps outside, told a maid to open the door and show him in.

  "Dearest," said Vesperus, approaching her bed, "I know I'm late. Please don't be cross."

  "You might just as well have stayed there the whole night," she said. "Why put yourself to the trouble of coming over here?"

  "I'm terribly upset as it is about our having only half the night together. How could I stand a whole night without you?"

  By the time these words were out of his mouth, he had completely undressed. He opened the bedclothes, got into bed, and set to. At first, needless to say, Lucky Jade felt a moment's pain, just as Lucky Pearl had done, but when she reached the state of rapture, she gave an impression that was very different from Lucky Pearl's-one of utter desperation. It was a sight to make a man pity her but at the same time want to make love to her all over again. Why was that? She was three or four years younger than Lucky Pearl, and rather slight. There was nothing to compare with her skin for softness and delicacy, and her breasts were like two new-laid, soft-shelled eggs, which the mere weight of a man's body threatened to crush. As for the soft suppleness of her figure, the demure charm of her manner, when she stood outdoors, you feared lest the wind might blow her over, and even when she sat indoors, you felt she needed people beside her to hold her up. How could she endure the wear and tear of actual sex? After a few hundred strokes her eyes were half-closed, her lips were parted, and her heart was choked with things she was too weak to say. She feared that her constitution could not stand the strain and that if he went on much longer, her life would be in danger. Her only hope was that Vesperus would stop thrusting and let her revive.

  Vesperus noticed the state she was in and was overcome with pity. "My sweet little darling, can't you bear it anymore?"

  She nodded, unable to reply.

  Vesperus slipped off to let her recover. He knew she could not endure it if he went on, but he loved her too much to stop. In the end all he could do was take her in his arms and draw her on top of him, in which manner, fitted snugly together, they slept until dawn.

  Cloud and Lucky Pearl arose early and, with a view to working out a long-term plan with Vesperus, visited Lucky Jade's bedroom to urge him out of bed. On opening the screen, they found Lucky Jade sprawled on top of him and awoke them both.

  "We won't need any candles when we light up tonight," they said mockingly.

  "If the oil is all used up and there aren't any candles left, don't blame us!" said Lucky Pearl.

  After a few more jokes they put their problem to Vesperus. "If you leave every morning and return every night, sooner or later someone is going t
o notice," they explained. "If you're gone every night, even your own concubine will suspect you of having an affair and try to find out about it. Can you think of any solution? It would be best if you could stay here a while and not return home even in the daytime. If we could be together, we wouldn't necessarily have to make love all the time. It would be fun to play chess, write poetry, tell jokes. Do you happen to have some brilliant scheme that would bring all this about?"

  "Before I came over," said Vesperus, "I put the most marvelous plan into effect. I didn't leave everything until now."

  "What is that?" they asked.

  "My concubine is pregnant and can't sleep with me anymore. I spoke to her yesterday and suggested that since I've been away from home a long time, it might be a good idea if I made a return visit during her pregnancy. The whole journey need take only three months, which would bring me back in time for the delivery and free me from having to go home afterward, at a time when we could be enjoying ourselves. She said it made good sense to her. On my return to the house this time, I'll pack up and set off with one of my pages, making as if to return home but actually coming over here. During these next three months we'll not only write poems, play chess, and tell jokes, we'll even have time to put on [chuan] some plays."

  The three women jumped for joy. "It's such a brilliant scheme, not even Chen Ping could have thought it up!" [79]

  "There's one other thing I need to discuss with you. I have two pages, one a bit naive, the other rather smart. I'm going to leave the naive one at home and bring the smart one with me. But the trouble with this lad is that he has his master's ways about him-he's sex-crazy. If we don't let him have a piece of the pie, he'll get restless and want to go back, which will only lead to trouble. What can you suggest?"

  "That's simple," said Lucky Pearl. "We have plenty of maids, and we'll just give him one at bedtime and let him enjoy himself. It will serve to tie him down and also stop up the maids' mouths and prevent them from tattling when our husbands get back."

  "Good idea," said Vesperus. Their arrangements made, the women saw him off. That same evening he returned with his bags.

  From then on, not only did Vesperus lie down drunk amid the flowers and savor every erotic delight, even his page turned into a miniature version of Lin Bu, who was surrounded by his plum-blossom wives until he almost died of the accumulated scent. [80]

  Alas, one day the beauties of spring will fade in the old garden and thoughts of the past will be too painful to bear.

  CRITIQUE

  Far from feeling jealous of her sworn sisters, Cloud was prepared to share the man she loved with her kindred spirits. Immoral as her conduct may have been, it has much to commend it as an act of friendship. If you look for comparable behavior among men, you won't find any. Nowadays the projects that sworn brothers embark on may not be entirely moral, either, but the spirit of envy is even stronger among them than among outsiders. What a lucky thing such men were not born as women! As women they would have gone to extremes and not rested until they had run the gamut of debauchery.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Real enjoyment comes to grief at midpoint, As a human erotic album is seized in its trunk.

  Poem:

  Her suffering heart belies the spring,

  As she works the silk with another thread.

  The needle breaks at the lovebird scene-

  And the joy in her picture is also dead.

  The women hid Vesperus in their house, and each of them slept with him for one night, in order of seniority, after which the rotation began again, all without discord. After several rotations, Vesperus added a new rule entitled the "Thrice Alone Once Together Coordinated System": after sleeping with him individually for three nights, they were to sleep with him collectively for a night before returning to the rotation. Thanks to this new rule, they were able to experience the joys of togetherness.

  Once the rule was established, they set up another, extra-wide bed and made for it a five-foot-long pillow and a coverlet sewn from six widths of material. When they slept together, Vesperus would get the three sisters to lie side by side, while he himself rolled here and there from body to body, never touching the bed, but making love wherever he fancied as he worked his way from one side to the other. Luckily none of the women possessed a great deal of sexual stamina, and after thrusts ranging in number from one hundred to two hundred, they would want to spend. When the woman in the middle had spent, he would move to the one on the left, and when she had spent, he would turn to her neighbor on the right. A few hours sufficed to complete his main task. The rest of the time he liked to spend fondling their soft charms and savoring their fragrance. The bliss that was now his had been enjoyed in the past, even among emperors, by only a handful of epicures such as Xuanzong of the Tang, Yangdi of the Sui, and the Last Ruler of the Chen. Since all of the other, more straitlaced emperors had never enjoyed it, think how remote it was from the experience of some licentiate too poor to keep wife or concubine!

  Shortly after Vesperus moved in, Cloud held a secret conclave with her sisters. "It's a marvelous piece of luck having this immortal, this treasure, here for our enjoyment," she said. "My only concern is that the best things in life always come to grief. At the height of success one ought to be constantly on guard against failure. We mustn't let any outsider know, or the news will spread. Then he'd have to leave, and that might be very awkward."

  "This house is out of the way," said Lucky Pearl, "and we don't have any casual visitors, so what goes on in here will never be known outside. Even our own stewards have to wait beyond the inner gate, and we simply won't let them in. No, it's not men I'm worried about, it's a certain woman who lives nearby. If she ever finds out, the fun will be over."

  "Who do you mean?" asked Lucky Jade.

  "Someone with the same surname was ours. Don't you know?"

  "Aunt Flora?"

  "Who else? You know what an oversexed creature she is. She may be a widow, but men are constantly on her mind. What's more, she was with us that day at the temple, and when he kowtowed, she went crazy, too, as if she'd have liked to kneel down and kowtow along with him if only she weren't too embarrassed. What a performance she gave! When we got home, she praised his looks to the skies and said what a pity it was she didn't know his name, because if she did, she'd never let him get away. If someone as lusty as that learns we have him tucked away over here and are having such a good time with him, do you suppose she won't get envious and set a trap for us? Something awful is bound to happen-apart altogether from the fact that the fun will be over."

  "You're absolutely right. She's terribly devious. We'll just have to take precautions."

  "But what should we do?" asked Lucky Jade.

  "I used to worry that the maids might leak the news," said Lucky Pearl, "but now that they have Satchel to keep them quiet, I doubt that they'll be inclined to gossip. So I'm not worried that she'll hear about Vesperus, only that she'll notice him. When she comes over, she'll suddenly sneak into the room without warning, her eyes darting about like a thieving rat's, as if we were up to something behind her back. The key thing in defending ourselves against her is to have the maids take turns keeping watch along the border between the houses. When they see her coming, they should give a secret signal, a cough, say, or a shout, to allow us time to hide our man. The other thing we have to do is think of some hiding place where she won't find him."

  "What would be the best place?" asked Lucky Jade.

  The three women exchanged ideas. One suggested he hide behind the door; another suggested under the bed.

  "No, neither place will do," said Lucky Pearl. "Those thief's eyes of hers are awfully sharp, and they'll spot someone behind a door or under a bed in a flash. In my opinion there's just one place you could put him where even an immortal would never think of looking."

  "Where do you mean?" asked the other two.

  Lucky Pearl pointed to a piece of furniture, a trunk used for storing old paintings. It was more tha
n six feet long, two feet wide, and over three feet high and was covered in bamboo fabric stretched over thin wooden slats. "That would be ideal," she said, "not too long nor too wide, but just big enough for a man to lie down in. If we empty out all the paintings, we can hide him in there in an emergency and she'll never suspect a thing. My only concern is that he may suffocate, but if we knock out a couple of slats, he should be all right."

  "Brilliant! Let's do that," said the others. They told the maids to take turns on lookout duty and then knocked a few slats out of the trunk. They also told Vesperus that anytime he saw a strange woman coming, he should lie down inside the trunk and keep absolutely quiet. After the plan was put into operation, their aunt made several visits, but the maids gave the secret signal, Vesperus disappeared inside the trunk, and she noticed nothing.

  But there was trouble in store for the sisters. One day they found a notebook in Vesperus's cardcase and, on opening it, saw that it contained the names of a number of women who were classified into categories and evaluated in critical comments. The notebook was in Vesperus's handwriting.

  "When did you see these women?" they asked. "And when did you write this? And what was the point of it?"

  "Oh, I did that while I was living in the temple," said Vesperus. "I made those notes as I observed the visitors to the temple. My idea was to compile a list from which I would select a few brilliant prospects for intensive cultivation."

  "Well, and did you find your brilliant prospects?"

  Vesperus folded his hands in salutation. "Behold, my three pupils."

  They laughed. "We don't think we deserve that kind of evaluation. You just made that up on the spur of the moment."

  "There's no need to be so suspicious," said Vesperus. "I have the poems to prove it." He looked up their rankings and evaluations and showed them. After a careful scrutiny, they began to swell with pride. The praise might be a little overdone, they allowed, but at least it was apt, not general criticism of the one-size-fits-all kind.