The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

hands on the arms of the chair and, in tune with his movements, lithely twisting and bending her middle parts toward him. Thus they carried on for a time, exactly in accordance with Figure 2 of their textbook

Suddenly, way down deep, she had a strange feeling of a kind that was utterly new to her; it did not hurt, no, it was more like a sensation of itching or tickling, almost unendurable and yet very very pleasant.

“Stop,” she cried, bewildered by the strangeness of the thing. “That’s enough for today. You are hurting me.” And she tried to wrest herself free.

Thoroughly experienced in these matters, he realized that he had touched her most intimate spot, her flower-heart. Considerately acceding to her wishes, he moved away from the ticklish spot and contented himself with moving his bellwether slowly back and forth several dozen times through her pleasure house with its narrow passages and spacious halls. The intruder made himself thoroughly at home on her property, and she was overcome by an irresistible desire to punish him for his insolence. Choking would be a fair punishment she thought.

Removing her hands from the arms of the chair, she let his back slip down and dug her hands into his buttocks. This enabled her to press closer to him, an operation in which he helped by clasping her slender waist in his hands and holding her as tightly as he could. Thanks to the intimate conjunction thus achieved – they were now exactly in the position illustrated in Figure 3 – she held his stiff thick bellwether firmly enough to start slowly strangling it. While sparing no effort and answering pressure with pressure, he saw that her eyes were clouding over and the stately edifice of her hair was becoming undone.

“Hsin-kan, my heart, my liver,” he panted. “You seem to be on the verge – but it is very uncomfortable in this chair; shall we not continue on the bed?”

This suggestion did not appeal to her. She had the rascally intruder just where she wanted him; just a little longer, and she would choke the life out of him. At this late stage, she was quite unwilling to be cheated of her pleasure. If they were to move to the bed now, he would slip away from her. No, this was no time for interruptions! She shook her head resolutely. Then closing her eyes as though she were already half asleep, she said – this was her pretext – that she was much too tired to move.

He decided on a compromise: leaving her position unchanged, he placed his hands beneath her seat in such a way that she could not slip down, bade her throw her arms round his neck. Pressing his mouth to hers, he lifted her up carefully and thus enlaced carried her into the bedroom where they went on with the game.

Suddenly she let out a scream: “Dearest, ah! ah!…”

She pressed closer and closer to him and the sounds that issued from her mouth were like the moans and groans of one dying. It was clear to him that she was on the threshold. And he too at the same time! With his last strength he pressed his nephrite proboscis into the sanctum of her flower-temple. Then for a time they lay enlaced as though in a deathlike sleep. She was first to stir; she heaved a deep sigh and said:

“Did you notice? I was dead just now.”

“Of course I noticed. But we don’t call it ‘death.’ We call it ‘giving off an extract.’ ”

“What do you mean by ‘giving off an extract’?”

“Both in man and woman a subtle essence of all the bodily humors is at all times secreted. At the peak of amorous pleasure one of the body’s vessels overflows and gives off some of this extract. Just before the flow, the whole body, skin and flesh and bones, falls into a deep, unconscious sleep. Our physical state before, during, and after the flow is called tiu ‘a giving off of extract.’ It is depicted in Figure 5.”

“Then I was not dead?”

“Of course not. You gave off an extract.”

“If that is so, I hope I may do it day after day and night after night.”

He burst into a resounding laugh.

“Well, was I not right to recommend the picture book as an adviser? Is it not priceless?”

“Yes, indeed. A priceless treasure. We must consult it over and over again. A pity that the friend you borrowed it from will want it back again.”

“Don’t you worry about that. It was I myself who bought it. The whole story about the friend was just made up.”

“Oh, that is good news.”

From then on the two of them were one heart and one soul. Noble Scent became an assiduous reader of The Vernal Palace and from that day on she could not praise it too highly. Like a diligent pupil, she made every effort to put her learning into practice, and never grew weary of experimenting with the new forms and variations of the wind-and-moon game. The prim “little saint” grew to be a past mistress at the arts of love. Determined to keep her vernal fires supplied with fuel, the Before Midnight Scholar ran untiringly from bookshop to bookshop, buying more books of the same kind, such as the Hsiu-t’a yehshih, “The Fantastic Tale of the Silk-Embroidered Pillows,” or the Ju-yi-ch’un chuan, “The Tale of the Perfect Gallant,” or the Ch’ip’o-tzu chuan, “The Tale of the Love-Maddened Women,” and so on. In all he bought some twenty such books and piled them up on his desk.

Together they devoured each of the new acquisitions and then put it away in the bookcase to make place for new reading matter. Both of them were so insatiable in their thirst for discovery that three hundred and sixty pictures of vernal positions could not have stilled their appetite. They were like the lovers we encounter in novels: an orchestra of lutes and guitars, a whole concert of bells and drums would not have sufficed to express the harmony and happiness of their hearts.

So far all was for the best between them. And yet something was amiss; something that injected a discordant note into the harmony of their young marriage.

The relations between father-in-law and son-in-law left much to be desired. As the reader already knows, Dr Iron Door was a crotchety, old-fashioned gentleman, an eccentric if ever there was one. He looked back fondly on the good old times, cherished the honesty and simplicity of our forebears, and abhorred the empty affectations of the profane crowd. Licentious talk was strictly taboo in his presence. What he liked best was earnest discussion on themes drawn from the teachings of Confucius.

The very first evening after the Before Midnight Scholar came to live under his roof, Dr Iron Door looked askance at his fashionable clothing and his smooth, ingratiating ways which the old man judged to be quite superficial. From the very first moment, he took a dislike to this smooth, excessively handsome young man.

“Plenty of fine leaves,” he grumbled in secret, “but no fruit, no solid kernel; from his kind my daughter will get little support in her old age and affliction. However,” he continued with a sigh of resignation, “the forms of this marriage have been observed; he has punctiliously provided his betrothal and wedding presents, and we have draped our house in the traditional red; the mistake has been made and cannot be unmade. Let us wait until the wedding is over; then I will take him under my strict paternal discipline and teach him to be an honest and in every respect scrupulous man.” Such was his plan.

And he put it into execution. From morning to night he brooked no misconduct. The least mistake, whether of commission or omission, brought the young man a sound paternal scolding. Even the slightest incorrectness in walking, standing, sitting, or reclining called forth severe criticism and long-drawn-out commentaries.

But as the only son and heir of parents who had died while he was still a boy, our Before Midnight Scholar had long been accustomed to a good deal of independence. He could hardly have put up for long with all this tedious discipline and pedantic backbiting.

Several times he was on the point of giving his father-in-law a piece of his mind, of telling him in no uncertain terms that he had had enough of his schoolmasterly ways. But then he thought of Noble Scent. A serious dispute with the old gentleman might upset her and introduce an unwelcome dissonance into the hitherto so admirable harmony of their conjugal lyres. Accordingly he controlled himself and swallowed his indignation. But when there seemed to be no end to his swallowing, the effort became too much for him and one day, after long deliberation, his mind was made up.

“From the very first,” he said to himself, “it was his daughter I was interested in. But because he was so attached to her and the thought of her leaving home was so distasteful to him, I did him a favor and moved in with him. His only thanks was to subject me to the crushing weight of his T’ai-shan authority, to tyrannize me in every way he could. By what right? What entitles a worm-eaten old pedant and doctrinaire like him to lord it over me? Do I have to stand for it? He should be grateful to me for putting up with his nonsense and not telling him what I think of his antiquated ways. But instead of that, he goes on scolding and bickering and trying