The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

blotched her skin with blue splashes. It was an inky rain that ran cobalt in the gutters. She didn’t know where she was running, only that she’d recognize the place instantly when she saw it. There were eagles in the sky, and one of them dropped a red flag at her feet. She draped herself in it, and ran on with the dresses loading her arms. The traffic had its lights on, and the rain flashed up in white dipped arcs. Betty was aware of the urgency of the man’s thrusts, he was gagging her with his deep placement, it felt like her mouth was being expanded to three or four times life size. But mentally she had found the place. She went in through a wide open door. The shop was dark. There was a white cat sitting on the counter. The silence was loaded. It was a mannequin came out of the dark, wearing a white wedding veil spotted with blood. She knew without questioning it that the thing could speak. “You will wait in this shop a thousand years,” it said. “When the wind comes in, rusty eyed and dragging its dead tail, and when the rain arrives in the form of a sequined fish, expiring, deoxygenated, and the sun bounces in as a red ball no larger than your compact fist, then…” The man was starting to come, for she could feel the hot salinity decanted into her throat, his agonized pleasure exploding from a volcanic core. And no sooner had he withdrawn, than another penis entered her mouth, and the chant continued, a ritual incantation gradually receding to a sustained whisper. Betty didn’t know how long she had been here, or after a time even what had happened or was happening. She moved between inner consciousness and jabs at reality. But she was aware at some stage that she was being marched back through the confused maze of corridors, and this time she was dressed in a violet tunic, and someone had placed flowers in her hair. The midget continued to walk ahead, and the monkey kept an exact pace. They were going back through halls, complexes, and she was finally shown into a bedroom. It was almost dawn. She had completed her journey to the end of the night.

JOU PU TUAN by Li-Yu

After leaving the hermit, the young man went his way mumbling and grumbling:

“A fine saint indeed! Here I am, just twenty, barely at the threshold of manhood, and he expects me to take the tonsure, to renounce the world, and to suffer the bitterness of a monkish existence. Has such heartlessness its like in all the world? I only went to pay him my respects because formerly, before becoming a hermit, he was regarded as one of the leading lights of Confucian scholarship. I fancied he would dig up heaven knows what magic spells and bits of occult wisdom to help me on my way. But instead, he has the gall to treat me as a stupid child, and his only gift to me is this absurd and utterly uninspired epigram, which is like thunder without lightning. The whole thing is preposterous. As a future official and dignitary, I shall some day govern a whole district with a population numbering tens of thousands, and he fancies that I won’t be able to govern my own wife. Is it unreasonable of me to desire a little practice in the wind-and-moon game a little experience before marrying? That’s what he was trying to forbid. But otherwise I should be going into marriage with my eyes closed and might even choose the wrong woman. And to top it all, he tells me that someone might requite me for past transgressions by violating the securely guarded honor of my house. As though the woman who gets a paragon of manly qualities like me for a husband had any need to be seduced by another man! My own wife unfaithful! – Why, it’s out of the question.

“I should really tear up this incompetent epigram and stamp on it. But no, I’d better not. I can use it as evidence later on, to stuff down his venomous throat. If I ever meet him again, I’ll show him his epigram and put him to the test, to see whether he admits his mistake.”

After thus deliberating, he folded the epigram and put it into his belt pocket.

Returning home, he bade his servants seek out all the marriage brokers they could find and commission them to search the city and countryside for the most beautiful of marriageable girls. She must be of respectable and distinguished family; and he insisted that she must be not only beautiful, but intelligent and well educated as well. There was no lack of offers. What paterfamilias would not have been glad to have him for a son-in-law, what daughter would not have taken him for a husband? Each day a number of marriage brokers came to him with their suggestions. Where the candidate was not too high in the social scale, the matchmaker would bring her along to be introduced and inspected at first hand. But in the case of a distinguished family which insisted on its forms and observances, she arranged to have the young man, as though by chance, cross the young lady’s path in the courtyard of one of the temples, or while she was taking the air out-side the city walls.

All these meetings and tours of inspection proved to be quite useless. A certain number of worthy young persons were unnecessarily jolted out of their peaceful routines and sent home again with vain pangs in their tender little hearts. For of all the candidates who were brought forward, not a one met with the exacting suitor’s approval.

But one of the marriage brokers said to the young man:

“Now it is clear to me that among all the young candidates there is only one who is worth considering: Miss Noble Scent; her father is a private scholar, known throughout the city by the surname T’ieh-fei tao-jen, Iron Door Follower of the Tao. She alone can meet your stringent requirements. But in her case there is a difficulty: her father is an old crank who adheres rigidly to the ancient customs. He would certainly not permit you to inspect his daughter before marriage. Consequently I fear that even this last hope must be abandoned.”

“Iron Door Follower of the Tao? How did he come by such a strange surname? Why does he not wish his daughter to be seen? And if he keeps her hidden from all eyes, how do you know she is beautiful?”

“As I have told you, the old gentleman is rather crochety; he cares only for his books and avoids all society. He doesn’t see a living soul. He lives in a splendid country house outside the city, with fields and meadows round it, and it makes no difference who knocks on his door, he refuses to open. One day an unknown admirer came to see him, a respected gentleman from another part of the country, who wished to pay his respects. He knocked at the door for some time and when no one answered, he cried out, but in vain. Before going away he wrote an epigram on the door:

For a wise man ivy and vines

Are protection enough, he needs no door.

Yet this noble lord – who would have thought it -

Hides behind an iron door.

When the master of the house found the epigram, he decided that the two ideograms, t’ieh, iron and fei, door, summed up his character perfectly, and he chose them as a surname. From then on he called himself T’ieh-fei tao-jen: Iron Door Follower of the Tao. He is a wealthy widower and his daughter is his only child. As for her beauty, it is no exaggeration to liken her to a lovely flower, a precious jewel. In addition, her father has given her an excellent education and her little head is full of learning. Poems, essays in poetic prose, songs, stanzas – she is familiar with them all and can compose in any form. Her upbringing, as you may easily surmise, has been extremely strict, and she has hardly ever set foot outside her maidenly quarters. She never goes out, not even to the traditional services on temple holidays, and there is simply no question of visits to relatives and friends. She is sixteen years old and has never been seen in public. Even we three go-betweens and six marriage brokers have no wings, we can’t fly into her living quarters. It was only by the purest accident that I myself caught a glimpse of her not long ago.

“Yesterday I chanced to pass the house while the old gentleman was standing outside the door. He stopped me and asked if I were not Mother Liu, whose trade it was to arrange marriages. When I answered in the affirmative, he invited me in and presented his daughter. ‘This is the young lady, my only child,’ he said, and continued: ‘Now I should like you to look around and bring me a suitable son-in-law who is worthy of her and has the qualities he would need to be a son to me and the prop of my old age.’ At once I suggested that the young gentleman would be an appropriate match. He said: ‘I have already heard of him, he is said to possess high intellectual gifts as well as external advantages. But what of his character and his virtue?’ To this I replied: ‘The young gentleman is distinguished by a spiritual and ethical maturity far in advance of his years. His character is without the slightest blemish or weak point. There is only one thing: he absolutely insists on seeing his future bride with his own eyes before the betrothal.’ At once the benevolent look vanished from the old gentleman’s face, and he became very angry: ‘Nonsense. He wants to see her first – that may be permissible in the case of a venal powder-puff, a rutting mare from Yangchow. But since when is it the custom to expose the honorable daughter of a good family to the eyes of a strange man? A fine thing that would be. An impudent demand, which makes it clear to me that the young man is not the right husband for my daughter. Not another word!’ With this he broke off the