entered the passageway described, and finding it clear I led him to my room.
'What a dainty bower!' he said in French. 'Will its sweet-voiced occupant be pleased that we both unmask?' He removed his mask and disclosed one of those ruddy countenances with bright eyes and fair hair which always so bewitch an Italian lady.
I flung back my nun's disguise and stood revealed to him in the costume of a lascivious young dancing girl. The young Russian seemed to admire my dark Italian complexion as much as I admired his northern hue. He knelt and kissed my hand.
'Can you pity a bride,' said I, 'whose husband neglects her?'
A flush of pleasure crossed the officer's face which made my looks seek the floor. 'It would be the supremest happiness,' he said, 'to pity and console you.' He clasped his arms around me and our lips met.
The moment I had so long desired for had now come. I was borne in his strong arms to the bed, where I lay palpitating with desire while he stripped off his outer garments.
Then the fervour of our kisses and caresses showed the length of time we had both suffered without an embrace. My dress formed no obstacle to his caresses, either to my bosom, which he fairly seemed to devour, or to my thighs, which he squeezed and patted. I guided his shaft with one hand while with the other I parted the hair encircling the lips to receive it.
How stiff it was, and yet how full of life and warmth! How tight, and yet how soft and lubricated was the place it was entering! I was so eager I had not even affected to be coy.
'How delicious!' he exclaimed.
'How exquisite!' I replied.
He gave a thrust which enabled me to take his shaft in to the hilt. Then he gave another and another, each successive one more greedily swallowed. Flesh and blood could no longer endure the rapture that was concentrated at my very loins! I thrilled from my womb to my very fingertips! I melted and bathed his hot crest; his responsive gush drenched my glowing womb. It seemed as if we were being fused together at the point of contact. Then our muscles relaxed closely in the moisture and we engaged for awhile in voluptuous repose.
'Now kiss me and go,' said I, 'and if you value the favour I have granted you, leave this house at once.' My object was to fill his place with another handsome Russian, who might come fresh to the encounter, and whose genitals my wanton hands might explore and my wanton desire ravish. Months of longing were to be supplied by one night of boundless lust. Six times more before the ball broke up I took a Russian officer to my room and dismissed him as before — and each time a different one. Each time I was completely melted, and my Italian moisture mingled with the Russian sperm. The next morning my glass showed me that I had dark and sunken circles around my eyes, and I was somewhat languid, but for a few days at least I was not troubled with desire.
The fat and charming Italian lady had been gently fondling my genitals all the while she had been speaking and my shaft had begun to rise at the delicate attention. When she finished her story she knelt before me with her forehead on the carpet, laughingly saying, 'Salaam, alirkoum,' which was the Moorish to signify she was at my service.
Her large, round buttocks were elevated in the air and looked so temptingly smooth and soft that I mounted her in that position as a stallion would mount a mare. She seemed nothing loth and my half-stiffened shaft worked its way in past the swollen lips — past the extraordinary protuberance within, which my fingers had first discovered — and buried itself amid the moist and clinging folds of her sheath.
My loins sank into her fat buttocks, which yielded as I pushed, till my stones were hidden in her hair like eggs in a nest. Still I kept pushing into the yielding mass without once drawing back till my shaft grew stiff with the delightful sensation, and my crest exchanged a wanton desire with her womb. I held her firmly by clasping a great, soft breast in either hand. A few minutes more and I would have paid tribute to her voluptuous loins, but Laura could not wait.
With a sigh of satisfaction her frame became limp, her knees gave way and she sank flat upon her belly. My shaft drew out of her far more stiff than it went in. The same accompanying sucking noise that ended my connection with Helene set them all to laughing.
'I must take a measurement,' said one of them and, taking off her bracelet, she clasped it around my shaft. But the clasp would not fasten. The bracelet was not large enough. Then they all tried their bracelets on with the same result.
'How shall we measure its length,' said one of them.
'Four of you have that measure already,' said I, 'and you know I promised it to all of you. Please let me take some measurements now,' I added, unwinding the garter from the leg of the nearest lady. It was a piece of strong tape and suited my purpose admirably. I measured the size of all their bosoms and the circumference of their thighs, and then, amid laughing protestations, I parted the hair between each pair of thighs and measured the length of their slits. In the last measurement they all seemed to be desirous of being the smallest, as in the other they each wished to be the largest in size. The young Persian who told her story later in the evening bore off the palm in the last contest. Her diminutive slit looked all the more cunning that the hair around it was hardly long enough to curl. Zuleika had the largest bosoms, while the thighs of Laura defied competition.
'Here, Anna, take the scarf,' interrupted the Italian, 'and tell the Captain something about Circassia.'
The lady thus addressed was about nineteen years of age and she was very tall and slender. Her limbs were finely tapered; so was her round waist, which I could have spanned with my two hands. Her nicely cut breasts were as erect as if they had been carved from alabaster, which her skin resembled in whiteness. The hair on her small head was of the palest blonde, but that at her loins was fiery red, which I had read was a sign of uncontrollable wantonness.
If so, this lady's face gave no indication of it. Her large blue eyes looked at you with the innocence of childhood, and the delicate roseate hue of her cheeks varied at every changing emotion. She did not seem sensible, however, of the privilege conferred upon her by the scarf. She stretched herself between my thighs, where she leaned with her elbow on the cushion, supporting her graceful head with her hand. Her bosom rested on my loins and my shaft was imprisoned by her snowy breasts from between which its red crest peeped out while she looked me in the face and told her lascivious story.
CHAPTER SIX
The powerful old chief to whom my mother was married had no children of his own. I was her only child by a former marriage and her fondness was all centred on me. Our religion, which was the Greek, forbade a plurality of wives. The old chief was not likely to have a direct heir, and, as he was now seventy, her great object was to have him confer on me the succession to the principality; this last he consented to do if she would countenance his amours with other women.
She consented to do so and the strange compact was formed — I was present as witness. Unknown to either of them, I had been in the habit, for a long time, of frequenting a little alcove in their bedroom where a few books were kept. It was separated by a curtain from the rest of the room and communicated also with my chamber by a sliding panel. This secret panel, which I had accidentally discovered, was a kind often met with in such old castles as we inhabited. It was known to me alone, or, if the old chief knew it was there, he never thought of it.
I had there witnessed all the secrets of the marriage chamber, and of course my passions were rapidly developed. My mother was still plump and handsome; she enjoyed keenly the marriage embrace, but always had to work very hard in order to finish the tardy rapture of the old chief. On the occasion of the compact I heard her tell him she could give him all he wanted. He could only reply that a man liked a variety.
'Very well,' said she, 'make out the deed for Anna's succession and I will not only countenance but assist in your amours. We can in that way at least secure secrecy and avoid scandal, for no one will suspect a wife of conniving at her husband's amours.'
The old chief then confided to her that the present object of his desire was Leuline, the handsome wife of the
