In the dark, Choisy's lips searched Francesca's. As he found them a tremor of bliss agitated them both and they remained long in a loving embrace. As he finally released her, she exclaimed:
— Oh, dear, how well you can deceive people!
He kissed her again, drawing back the curls of her hair and drinking in the perfume of her throat. She sighed with ecstasy, but, growing a bit alarmed, she said:
— Let me go home now!
— Not yet, he answered, it must be so lovely to remain together in this swaying gondola.
— I'm afraid it will be swaying too much, and then we'll be in the drink.
— Then we'll love each other in the water like sea-monsters, he bantered.
She tried to push away his straying hand. Under her cape she was wearing only a light dress and a thin chemise.
This little struggle lasted a moment, he trying to reach with his hand at the vulnerable points of her anatomy, and she striving to push his hand away, until eventually she felt against her bare loins something unmistakably hard and warm, and she gave way to his advances.
Slowly, in order not to disturb the balance of the gondola too much, he drove his instrument in and out. But she soon grew so amorous and excited that she found his slow movements too little of a good thing, so she thrust out with her loins and hastened the movement, whispering passionately the while: “Caro, caro…”
Then she gave orders to the gondolier to driver her home.
— Are you convinced, now? asked Choisy.
She tenderly shut his lips with her warm scented fingers, which he kissed with devotion.
Before leaving the gondola, she told him to return on the following night.
But what a surprise she had when, the next night, she saw a lady enter her palace instead of the man she was expecting.
Then the “lady” unveiled “her” face and, to her amazement, she saw it was really Choisy, or someone looking very much like him, for she was not convinced yet that a disguise could be so perfect.
— Is it really you? she asked, dubious.
— Shall I tell you what we did yesterday in the gondola to convince you? he asked.
— But your coiffure is absolutely ravishing!
— And, see, I even have a bosom-but an artificial one.
Still a little doubtful, she asked:
— Wouldn't you by any chance have a brother looking like you?
He laughed:-No, I am an only child.
Then he proceeded to divest himself of his feminine garments, in the privacy of her luxurious room.
At each phase of the undressing, she exclaimed “incredible!”
Then, when the Big Bad Wolf came to be seen, her heart gave furious thumps.
She let Choisy undress her and wondered at the skill of his hands.
— You're better than my maid, she said smiling.
The caresses his hands gave her as he undressed her were an excellent prelude to love. Choisy, too, was getting very much excited at the sight of her flesh getting more and more revealed, and the warm heady perfume that emanated from her delicately embroidered clothes.
At last, with feverish fingers, he divested her of the last protection of her garments, and threw himself on the bed with her.
He lay on top of her and kissed her neck, her mouth, then her bosom and remained some time savouring the milky whiteness of her voluptuous breasts, and, as he made the pink nipples grow under his gently biting lips, she squirmed with passion, and, as he came into her, she was ripe and ready.
But Choisy was determined to give her the whole gamut of love a la Francaise, so he did not go in yet, but proceeded to make her come several times with his tongue.
And how she responded to his clever love-making! She had never had such a lover before. Choisy had opened up new vistas of sensual pleasure to her.
As a good strategist, he kept attacking on all fronts at the same time. Thus, while he was sucking her off, with one hand he pinched her nipples in turn, and he used one-or sometimes two-fingers of the other hand as a penis, driving them deeply in and out of her warm juicy pussy.
He finished off by going into her himself, and timing it so that they came together in an orgasm so violent that it left them both dazed in blissful forgetfulness for a moment.
With some pauses for sleep, their love feast lasted long through the night and, in the morning, Choisy left Francesca's apartments dressed as a woman. He continued to adopt this disguise and it was funny to see that nobody ever suspected anything was afoot between him and Francesca.
At times, he even crossed in his path Francesca's lover-the rich merchant-and Francesca had a good laugh when he told her once that her elderly lover was making eyes at him, taking him for an attractive woman.
CHAPTER SIX
Charlotte de Ransac began to feel puzzled by Choisy. She expected him to try his hardest to seduce her. She remembered how pressing he used to be in Paris, and the satisfaction she got out of keeping him on a string. But here in Venice, although he paid her a visit practically every day, he was polite, witty and full of compliments, but still kept his distance.
First, she supposed that Choisy was taken up by other women, and was rather piqued by the idea. She looked at her voluptuous body in the mirror, and she was pleased with what she saw. How come Choisy did not seem any longer to appreciate her beauty to its full merit?
She tried in vain to get information about Choisy — even all the gossip failed to show that he was anything but a courteous gentleman and, so far, there was no sign of his having an affair with a Venetian lady.
So she opened up her heart to the marchioness of Rubo, who had the reputation of knowing more about intrigues in Venice than any other woman.
— Who has he fallen in love with? she asked her.
— Maybe his reputation is overdone, replied the marchioness.
— I can assure you that in France one could not keep count of his conquests.
— Well, in that case, he's probably indifferent to the Venetian type of beauty.
— He? Oh, no, that can't be. I know he can hide his game quite expertly, but can a love affair remain unknown for a long time in such a city as Venice?
After a pause, the marchioness spoke:
— You know, since he arrived in Venice, one has not yet solved the riddle of his real sex.
— He does arouse our curiosity, admitted Charlotte.
— Yes, it would be fun unmasking him. But who will do that-a man or a woman?
— We shall let chance decide it, Charlotte de Ransac suggested.
The marchioness smiled enigmatically.
— We shall help chance… she said. At carnival time it would be very easy and all of us women would be very glad of the opportunity.
All? Charlotte de Ransac thought that the case of Choisy interested too many people, and she would have preferred to have only one rival, for Choisy was, at least to her, a man who had wooed her and showed by his assiduous court that he was really a man. She could fight against a rival. But surely not against a whole conjuration of women.
She was thinking too much of Choisy, she realized. And that was not the worst. The truth was that her flesh was disturbed by her thoughts of him, and she found no longer any sexual satisfaction with her husband. She chose all sorts of pretexts to avoid his approaches. The sight of his big prick, all stiff and throbbing with desire, which used to make her twat shut and open and become all wet, now filled her with revulsion. And he was of course becoming more and more amorous with her continued refusals to satisfy his desire. He was even accusing her of cruelty, but women do not give a damn about hurting a man, when they have ceased to love him.
