The 120 Days of Sodom (20 page)

    These matters attended to, the usual searches were conducted; the lovely Fanny, whom Curval had ordered to be in such and such a state, was found in the contrary one (the sequel will provide elucidation of this obscure point): her name was set down in the punishment ledger. Amongst the young gentlemen, Giton had done what he had been forbidden to do; down went his name. After the chapel functions had been completed by the very few subjects who were on hand to execute them, the friends went to dinner.

    This was the first meal at which the four lovers joined the friends at table. They took their places, each sitting to the right of the friend who doted upon him, the friend's favorite fucker being seated to the friend's left. These four additional guests lent a further charm to the meal; they were all four very gentle, very sweet, and were beginning to accommodate themselves very well to the general tone of the household. The Bishop, in the liveliest spirits that day, kissed Celadon virtually without interruption throughout the course of the meal, and as that child was a member of the quartet chosen to hand around the coffee, he left table a little before dessert. When Monseigneur, who had worked himself into a splendid sweat over the boy, saw him entirely naked in the salon, he lost all self-control.

    "By Jesus!" he cried, his face purple, "since I cannot tup his ass, I can at least do what Curval did to his bardash yesterday."

    And so saying he seized the good-natured little rascal, laid him on his belly, and slipped his prick between his thighs. The libertine was lost in the clouds, his weapon's hair rubbed the cute little hole he would fain have perforated: one of his hands fondled this delicious little cupid's buttocks, with the other he frigged Celadon's prick. What was more, he glued his mouth to the lovely child's, pumped the air from his lungs, swallowed his saliva. In order to excite his brother, the Duc created a libertine spectacle by placing himself in front of the Bishop and proceeding to lick out the asshole of Cupidon, the other of the two boys serving coffee that day. Curval moved to within close range and had himself frigged by Michette, and Durcet offered the prelate the sight of Rosette's widespread buttocks. Everyone toiled to procure him the ecstasy to which he plainly asprired; it occurred, his nerves trembled, his teeth chattered, his eyes shone, he would have been a terrifying object for anyone save those three who knew full well the terrible effects joy had upon that man of God. The fuck finally broke forth and flowed over Cupidon's buttocks, for that quick-witted little aide had at the last moment wriggled his way beneath his comrade so as to receive the treasure which might otherwise have gone entirely to waste.

    The storytelling hour came, they readied themselves. By an unusual stroke of circumstance, all the fathers found their daughters beside them on their couches. But Messieurs were not alarmed. Duclos began to speak.

    In that you have not required me, Messieurs, to give you an exact day by day account of everything that happened to me at Madame Guerin's establishment, but simply to relate the more out of the ordinary events which highlighted some of those days, I shall omit mention of several not very interesting episodes dating from my childhood, for they would be naught but tedious repetitions of what you have heard already. And so I shall tell you that I had just reached the age of sixteen, not without having acquired a wealth of experience in my metier, when it fell to my lot to have a libertine whose daily caprice merits to be cited. He was a sober, very grave judge of nearly fifty years, a man who, if one is to believe Madame Guerin, who told me she had known him for many years, regularly exercised every morning the whimsicality wherewith I shall entertain you. His ordinary pimp had reached the age of retirement and recommended that the judge put himself in our dear mother's hands; this was his first call at the house, and he began with me.

    He stationed himself, alone, in the room with the spy hole, I entered the other with a hod carrier, a Savoyard, I believe; well, he was a common fellow, but a healthy strapping one: those qualifications were enough for the judge, who cared nothing for age or looks. I was, within clear view and as near as possible to the hole, to frig my honest churl, who knew what was expected of him and reckoned this a very pretty way indeed to earn his supper. After having unreservedly complied with all the instructions the good judge had given me, after having done all my sweet country buck could desire of me, I had him discharge into a porcelain dish, and having wrung the last drop from his prick, I dashed into the adjoining room. My man is awaiting me in an ecstasy, he pounces upon the dish, swallows the hot fuck, his own erupts; with one hand I encourage his ejaculation, with the other I collect in my hand every precious dram that falls and, between jets, quickly raising my hand to the old prankster's mouth, with great dexterity and nimbleness I see to it that he swallows his own fuck quite as fast as he squirts it out.

    That was all there was to it; no fingerings, no kisses, he didn't even lift my skirts, and rising from his chair with just as much aplomb as a moment before he had been aroused, he took his cane and left, saying that I frigged very skillfully, so he considered, and that I had very well grasped his character. A new workman was brought in the next day, for they had to be changed daily, as had the women. My sister operated for him, he left content, returned again on the morrow, and during my entire stay at Madame Guerin's I never saw a single day go by without him arriving punctually at nine, and never did he raise a single skirt, although he was ministered by some charming girls.

    "Had he any inclination to see the commoner's ass?" Curval wanted to know.

    "He had indeed, Monsieur le President," Duclos replied. "While amusing the man whose fuck he ate, one had to take great care to turn him this way and that, and the man had also to turn the girl around in every direction."

    "Well, now," said Curval, "that makes sense. But for that I'd not have understood a thing."

    Shortly afterward, continued Duclos, the harem's strength was increased by the arrival of a girl of about thirty, attractive enough, but with hair as red as Judas'. At first we though she was a new recruit, but no, she quickly disabused us by explaining that she had come for only one party. The man for whom this latest heroine was intended soon arrived also: he was an important financier of prepossessing appearance, and his singularity of taste, since the girl set aside for him would doubtless not have been wanted by anyone else, this singularity, I say, gave me the greatest desire to observe them come to grips. No sooner had they entered the room than the girl removed every stitch of her clothing and displayed a very fair and very plump body.

    "Very well, be off, jump about, skip," said the financier, "you know perfectly well I like them in a sweat."

    And thereupon the redhead falls to cutting capers, running around the room, leaping like a young goat, and our man keeps his eye fixed on her while he frigs himself; these activities continued a great while and there was no telling to what they were leading. When the girl was swimming in perspiration, she approached the libertine, raised an arm, and had him smell her armpit where the sweat was dripping from every hair.

    "Ah, that's it, that's it!" cried the tycoon, staring with furious approval at that sticky arm she held a centimeter from his nose, "what an odor! ravishing!"

    Then slipping to his knees before her, he sniffed the interior of her vagina, inhaling deeply, and then breathed in the scent emergent from her asshole, but he returned constantly to her armpits, whether because those parts flattered him the most, or because he found the bouquet superior, it was always there his mouth and nose betook themselves with the greatest fervor. At last a rather lengthy but not very thick device, a device he had been buffeting in vain for about an hour, decided to wake and have a look about. The girl takes her place, the financier comes up from behind and lodges his anchovy under her armpit, she squeezes her arm, exerting what I judged must have been a powerful grip; meanwhile, her posture enables the gentleman to enjoy the sight and odor of her other armpit, he lays hands on it, buries his snout under it and discharges while licking, while devouring this part which affords him such delight.

    "And the creature had to have red hair?" asked the Bishop. "That was a sine qua non?"

    "Absolutely," Duclos replied. "Those women, as you are not unaware, Monseigneur, exude an infinitely more violent underarm aroma, and his sense of smell once stung, no question of it, by ripe odors, his pleasure organs would be aroused at once."

    "Of course," the Bishop agreed. "But, by God, it seems to me I'd have preferred smelling that woman's asshole to sniffing under her arms."

    "Ah, ha!" spoke up Curval, "there is much to be said in favor of the one and the other, and let me assure you that if you'll but give the arms a try, you'll find them perfectly delicious."

    "Which is to say, I take it," said the Bishop, "that Monsieur le President finds that stew to his taste?"

    "Why yes, I've sampled it," Curval replied, "and apart from a few occasions when I added other episodes to that one, I protest to you that all by itself it has always been able to get some fuck out of me."

    "Oh yes, those episodes, I fancy what they were," the Bishop broke in, "you smelled the ass…"

    "One moment there," interrupted the Duc. "Don't oblige him to make his confession, Monseigneur, he'd tell us things we are not yet to hear; go on, Duclos, don't let these chatterers encroach upon your domain."

    I recall the period, our narrator resumed, when for more than six weeks Guerin absolutely forbade my sister to wash, requiring her, on the contrary, to keep herself in the rankest and most impure state she could contrive to be in; we had no inkling of the Madame's designs until one day there arrived a grog-blossomed old rake who, in a half-drunken and most uncouth tone, asked Guerin whether the whore was ready. "Oh, my goodness, you may be sure she is," Guerin replied. They are brought together, put in the room, I fly to the hole; scarcely am I there than I see my naked sister astride a capacious bidet filled with champagne and there is our man, armed with a great sponge, busily washing her and carefully recovering every bit of dirt that rolls from her body.

    It had been so long since she had cleaned any part of herself, for she had been strictly ordered not to wipe her behind, that the wine immediately took on a brown and dirty hue, and probably an odor which could not have been very agreeable. But the more the wine became corrupted by the filth streaming into it, the more delighted our libertine grew. He sipped a little, found it exquisite, provided himself with a glass and, filling it to the brim six or seven times, he downed the putrid and disgusting wine in which he'd just finished washing a body laden for so long with impurities. When he had drunk his fill, he seized my sister, laid her down flat upon the bed, and upon her buttocks and well-opened hole, spewed floods of immodest semen brought to a boil by the unclean details of his unpleasant mania.

    But another visitor, a far nastier one, was time and again to attract my regard. We had in the house one of those women who are called street scouts or trotters, to employ the bordello term, and whose function is to run abroad night and day and dig up new recruits. Over forty years old, this creature had, as well as very faded charms which had never been very winning, the dreadful defect that consists in stinking feet. And such, no other, was the fair sort whereof the Marquis de L*** was enamored. He arrives, Dame Louise - for such was her name - is introduced to him, he finds her superb, and once he has conducted her into the pleasure sanctuary, "Pray remove your shoes," says he. Louise, who had been explicitly enjoined to wear the same stockings and slippers for a month, offers the Marquis a foot that would have made a man of less fine discrimination puke straight off; but, as I say, that foot's very filth and nauseous quality was precisely what our nobleman cherished most. He catches it up, kisses it with fervor, with his mouth he spreads each toe, one after the other, with his tongue he gathers from each space, and gathers with incomparable enthusiasm, the blackish and fetid scum Nature deposits there and which, with a little encouragement, easily increases by itself. Not only does he draw this unmentionable stuff into his mouth, but he swallows it, savors it, and the fuck he loses while frigging himself stands as unequivocal proof of the excessive pleasure he takes in this fare.

    " 'Tis beyond me," was the Bishop's simple comment.

    "Then I suppose I'd best explain it to you," Curval said.

    "What? You've a taste for that?"

    "Observe," the President replied.

    The others rose, came from their niches, surrounded him, and beheld that peerless libertine, in whom were met all the tastes of the most crapulous lewdness, embrace the indescribable foot tendered him by Fanchon, that aged and foul servant we described earlier. Curval was in half a swoon as he sucked.

    "There's nothing to be wondered at there," said Durcet, "one need but be mildly jaded, and all these infamies assume a richer meaning: satiety inspires them in the libertinage which executes them unhesitatingly. One grows tired of the commonplace, the imagination becomes vexed, and the slenderness of our means, the weakness of our faculties, the corruption of our souls leads us to these abominations."

    Such must surely have been the case, Duclos went on, with the elderly General C***, one of Guerin's most reliable clients. The women he required had to be damaged either by Nature, by libertinage, or by the effects of the law; in a word, he accepted none who were not one-eyed or blind, lame, hunchbacked, legless cripples, or missing an arm or two, or toothless, or mutilated in their limbs, or whipped and branded or clearly marked by some other act of justice, and they always had to be of the ripest old age.