'You are joking; but do not make me wait. If my hair is the colour of fire, it is because the house is on fire! Now, you must put it out.'
The Countess bent forward and her lips met those of Florence, whom she clasped in her arms, then, suddenly rising and resting both hands on her shoulders, she brought her streaming and perfumed body on a level with her lips.
Florence at once pressed her lips to that second mouth, more perfumed still than the other, and which presented itself so unexpectedly; then advancing on her knees while the Countess walked backwards, she pushed the latter to a couch where she fell back, like one of the gladiators of old, with all the gracefulness required in such circumstances.
However little the Countess was used to playing a passive part in encounters of this description, she quickly understood that the dark complexioned and thin woman was endowed with a power of manhood superior to that which she herself possessed. She surrendered in this instance with the same readiness as before, and as the new agent of pleasure was more active and more complicated than its predecessor, she acknowledged its superiority by motions of her body which could not possibly leave Florence in doubt as to the intensity of the pleasurable sensations which she gave the Countess.
For a few seconds the two beautiful women remained motionless. Everybody knows that, in this peculiar mode of procuring Love's pleasures, the sensations of both giver and recipient are alike.
Florence was the first to recover from her trance. She remained for some few seconds on her knees before the Countess, and her eyes, her countenance, her smile, her arms, which in her exhaustion, hung motionless by her sides, all seemed to bear witness to her delight.
Wholly insensible to beauty in man, because she was almost a man herself, Florence worshipped beauty in women; however, she now felt a little uneasy fearing that her type of beauty might not be altogether to the taste of the Countess, a circumstance which the proud girl would have deemed very humiliating.
Thus, when she had recovered, and when the Countess began to disrobe her, Florence set herself to tremble in all her limbs, like a virgin whose unsullied body is about to be defiled by eyes other than her mother's.
But the Countess was impatient. The delightful emanations from Florence's body got into her head and seemed to intoxicate her.
'Come!' she said with a feverish impatience: 'Art thou not a woman? Art thou a flower? So be it; then, instead of drinking I shall inhale. Oh! the beautiful, curious thing!' she exclaimed, when she saw Florence's naked body. 'Why, that is like silk, like perfumed silk! What is the meaning of it?'
Thereupon the Countess began covering with kisses the charming ornament, which, as we said before, rose to a point as far as the breasts, getting thinner on the stomach and wider lower down, and on which when leaving her box, Florence had scattered a whole bouquet of newly gathered violets.
'Come!' said the astonished Countess; 'I confess I am vanquished. Not only are you far more handsome than I am, but you are much prettier!'
Then she led her to the dining room. Both naked, they entered the palace of mirrors, where a thousand crystals reflected at once their beautiful forms and the lights of the chandeliers and lustre's.
They looked at one another for some little time, their arms encircling each other's waists; each proud of her own beauty and that of her companion; then they took two white haicks, one with gold stripes, the other ornamented with silver, as transparent as woven air, and they sat down to supper. All the dishes were most dainty. The iced champagne sparkled in muslin-like decanters, and they began to sip the exhilarating beverage from the same glass, and often from each other's lips.
CHAPTER 9
At first they were attentive to one another as lovers would be together, helping one another to small dainties and titbits, intermixed with burning kisses on the arms, shoulders and lips. Then, after supper, they rose, letting their haicks fall to the floor, the Countess like the goddess Pomona, bearing away some fruit in a basket of golden filigree, and Florence holding in her hand a cup brimming over with sparkling champagne.
They approached the bed with arms encircling each other's waists. Then they looked at one another, as if to say: 'Who is going to begin?'
'Ah!' said the Countess, 'I think I must begin.'
No doubt Florence was satisfied with the reply, for she pressed her lips to those of the Countess, imprinting a burning kiss on her mouth, and she lay on the bed in a posture full of abandon.
The Countess gazed for a moment on the strange form, in which were combined the virility of the man and the gracefulness of woman. She took from her hair the golden comb studded with diamonds, and laid it as a crown on the charming representative of the mysterious Isis, who, foremost of all goddesses, was worshipped under the name of Saunia.
The gold and diamonds sparkled in the black fur, and the comb almost disappeared in it, without reaching however to the aperture which the jealous Countess would have wished to encompass.
Then she went on her knees, and as the magnificent ornament which she had just added to the shrine did not hinder her from paying her respects to it, she gently laid Florence's thighs on her two shoulders, and drew aside the thick fur which closed the entrance to the grotto disclosed to her view, like a casket of black velvet lined with rose- coloured satin.
At this unexpected sight the Countess gave an exclamation of pleasure, and at once began to apply her tongue to the pretty sanctuary; but, to her great astonishment, she perceived that the passage, which she thought free, was closed up. She rose quickly and looking eagerly at Florence, said:
'What does that mean?'
'Why, dear Odette,' said Florence laughing, 'it means that I am a virgin, or if you prefer it, that I still have my maidenhead.'
'Is there any difference?'
'Certainly, my dear. The virgin is a girl that never was touched by anybody; the innocent one who knows nothing of love's pleasures. But she of the maidenhead is the one who in spite of her own private practices, or her intercourse with others, has been able to keep whole the membrane of the Hymen.'
'Ah! then I have found a girl whom man never sullied! Oh! my beautiful Florence, I can hardly believe it.'
'You can ascertain for yourself,' said Florence; 'the more so as I have to reproach you with stopping short when I was just about to feel the approach of pleasure. Begin again, my beloved Odette, and should there be any further occasion for astonishment, wait till you have done before you express it.'
'One word more?'
'Certainly.'
'Then you have still your maidenhead, but you are no longer a virgin?'
'No, indeed I am not.'
'Are men responsible for your being no longer a virgin?'
'Not for the world. The gaze of man never rested on my form; never did man touch me.'
'Ah!' cried Odette, 'that is all I wished to know,' and she threw herself on Florence, and applied her lips to the sanctuary.
Florence gave a little shriek. She felt, perhaps too acutely the impression of the teeth which caressed her, but almost at the same time, Odette's tongue replaced the teeth and that clever tongue at once ascertained the accuracy of Florence's statement, and that if she was no longer a virgin, her maidenhead was still intact.
As for Florence she experienced all the pleasure which can be given by a skilful tongue, and it was so intense that she could hardly help uttering little shrieks as if in pain. She was almost in a swoon when the Countess began giving her on the mouth kisses which had been so profusely distributed elsewhere.
'Ah! it is my turn!' she said in a state of great excitement.
And she let herself glide from the bed in the posture of the wounded gladiator. The Countess took her place on the bed and drew her body close to Florence's inclined head.
'Ah!' she murmured: 'If a man had seen and heard what you just heard and saw, I should never dare to lift up my head again.'
