hips about. But as I had anticipated this maneuver, I had already adroitly crawled over her neck down to her bosom, between those juicy, round, solid globes I nestled motionless so that she could not feel my presence. The warmth and the sweet aroma of her naked skin delighted me. Although a peasant woman, she was much cleaner than would have been supposed. I have always been a discriminating Flea, and what interests me most is the challenge which I and my brethren must meet in our quest for survival. Now it is easy enough to attach oneself to the body of a man or a woman who has no great liking for hygiene. But when a Flea succeeds in remaining with someone who is not afraid of soap and water, then I say he has truly demonstrated acute perception. I now awaited Lucille's answer, and it was not long in coming: “If I lose, Dame Margot, why then, I promise you that you shall fuck with my Jacques whenever it pleases you and without my being wroth with you.”
“Why now, that is a fair wager and I will accept it gladly,” the black haired wench smilingly nodded. “And now that we have both spoken so frankly, I do not mind telling you that I have long coveted your husband and wondered how well he could conduct himself atop me. For I think that since I am younger than you, good Dame Lucille, I needs must possess more abundant juices in my slit than you in yours. And as you well must know, it is not enough to be a trough for a man's spunk, one must also meet it with one's own loving flow. A good day to you, but I will not wish you luck on the morrow.” And with this, tossing her head, she retired to the cottage next door and banged the door shut.
My red haired hostess let out a gasp of indignation and remained staring after her neighbor, her hands still on her ample hips, her eyes smoldering with jealous rage: “I will spite that forward hussy if it is the last thing I do! If I win the wager, as I shall, I shall fuck not only her Guillaume to my utter satisfaction, but I shall so contrive that when my Jacques beds down with that sallow jade, he will have no spunk left for her enjoyment—because I shall take it first. Younger than I am, indeed—why, in my thirty-one summers, I am still warmer and juicier between my thighs than she with her twenty-seven!”
At this point, I decided to sample her and took a very tiny bite of the white flesh between her big full breasts. It was true, she was most appetizing, and the flesh was as soft as a girl's. The squeal she gave was properly youthful, too. I told myself that for a few days, at any rate, it would be amusing to learn how a Frenchwoman lived and loved. I had always heard that the French were more passionate than the English, so my emigration might well prove to be educational.
When Dame Lucille slapped at herself to alleviate the tiny burning pangs of my quick nibble, I had already escaped to the deep, narrow hiding place of her belly button. And when she closed the door of her cottage, she did not know it, but she had given me her hospitality at least for the night.
CHAPTER TWO
Before I proceed to the description of the connubial scenes I was destined to witness on this my first evening in France, I think it well that my readers understand something of the nature of my species. We Fleas have been much maligned throughout the centuries, principally because we are said to be conveyors of the great outbreaks of bubonic plague. I shall not attempt to contradict the learned men of science and medicine who thus denounce us; I say only that we have conveyed these germs unknowingly, since they are not fatal to us. And I submit that if these same learned men were to examine our animals, they would find that there has never been in all of the Flea history a civil, much less an international, war. I submit that our morality is far less suspect than that of the species which condemns us. But so much for that.
I believe that those who read the first volume of my memoirs could detect in them not the slightest discordant reference, but only the perceptive narrative of amatory joys and adventures to which I was both witness and participant. So much also for that. But you may ask, how is it that a Flea can survive on the human body without detection and without the constant peril of extermination? Well, let us consider the Flea. In an era when there are complaints of expanding human population and decreasing food supplies for their nourishment, I and my brothers in no way deplete the world's supply of food. Consider that an unfed adult Flea may remain alive a year or more without the slightest nourishment. In some ways, indeed, we may be said to resemble the camel in being able to sustain ourselves on a very minimum of nourishment. We adult Fleas have a flat hard-skinned body, very thin from side to side, which permits us to slip between the hairs or the feathers of the animal on which we feed. And our large hind legs permit us to jump as much as thirteen inches horizontally and almost eight inches high. Moreover, we Fleas have instincts which enable us to anticipate the slightest threat to our safety, so that we invariably alter our hiding places. We need not always remain attached to the lovely bodies of young girls and women whom we have come to admire for their energy and amatory zeal. For example, I myself could have well remained all the night long atop that beam. It was only my innate curiosity—and that is one of the most powerful of all Flea instincts—which made me decide to follow the comely Dame Lucille into her cottage.
Finally, in my own defense, let me add that while there are at least five-hundred species of Fleas, almost half of which being found in North America and the West Indies, only a very few are really troublesome or dangerous to man. I am not one of these, happily.
And now that you perhaps understand me better, let me tell you what took place in the bedchamber of the auburn haired matron whose hospitality I had chosen for this first night in France.
About an hour later, my hostess' spouse came in from his work in the vineyard. He was about forty years of age, lean, bronzed from the sun, with a lantern jaw, a long nose and high forehead.
His brown hair was liberally streaked with gray, and his expression was dour. Yet you would have thought him the most handsome Casanova in all the world from the way his good wife welcomed him. With much cooing and giggling, like that of a schoolgirl, Dame Lucille hastened to him, flung her arms exuberantly around his neck and bussed him resoundingly on the mouth and cheeks and eyes and nose. “Mon amour, how did it go today?” she inquired as she continued to hold onto him and to arch her loins against his in a most suggestive manner.
“Well enough, ma belle,” he remarked in a gruff voice while his hands roamed over her back and down to her plump, spaciously rounded buttocks which he began to squeeze with lingering enjoyment. “It will be quite an event tomorrow afternoon. Master Villiers has promised that the winner of a contest, she who treads out the most wine from her vat, shall have a month's rent free as well as a dozen bottles of the finest wine.”
“Never fear, dear Jacques,” his wife purred as she wriggled about in his embrace, “I shall win the prize for you, my dear husband.”
“Now that I do not expect of you, Lucille,” he chuckled, as he at last disengaged himself from her embrace. “Go get my supper, that's a sweet-ling. With all due respect, I do not much suppose you can best the maidens who will compete against you. They are naturally younger and stronger in the limb, for all your good intentions. But I am well satisfied with you, nonetheless.”
With this, he gave her a lusty clap on the behind which made her squeal, and in great good spirits he strode off to his own chamber to remove his working clothes, which were soiled and stained from his work with the grapes.
When he returned, I saw somewhat to my surprise that he was clad only in his nightshirt. At first blush, this seemed singular, since the sun was only just setting and it certainly was not time to retire for the night. But I quickly divined that the worthy vintner was suffering from the pangs of two different hungers, and wished merely to be in a state of readiness for the satisfaction of both. His auburn haired spouse hovered about him like a cooing dove as he seated himself at the table, nor did she think it amiss that his attire for the evening repast was so informal. She brought him first a bowl of lentil soup, together with a crusty loaf of freshly baked bread and a bottle of red wine. Graciously he deigned to pour out two glasses, one of which he took and clinked to his.
“May you have luck tomorrow, ma mie,” he chuckled as he circled his right arm around her graceful waist and hugged her to him. After he had taken a sip of the wine, he put his lips to the bodice of her thin dress and nuzzled the luscious side-curve of one of those magnificent breasts of hers. “Yet on the other hand,” he added, giving her a jocular wink, “mayhap I should not wish you such, for you know it is the custom of the patron who owns the vineyard in which we all toil, to fuck each harvest time with her who is declared the most puissant squeezer of grapes. Hence, Lucille, if you should win on the morrow, I should be compelled to accept cuckoldry from him who pays me my wages. Do you still tell me that you wish to come off victorious in a matter that concerns my own husbandly honor?”
At this, the buxom Lucille promptly left her place on the other side of the table, went around to him, clasped
