The 120 Days of Sodom (52 page)

    The valet drew the cord that rang a bell, that was the signal, and a few minutes later we saw a tall, thin, wasted man of about sixty enter upon the stage. Beneath a loose-flowing dressing robe of India taffeta he was completely naked. He halted upon coming through the doorway; I had best tell you now that the Duc, supposing he was absolutely alone, had not the faintest idea his actions were being observed.

    "Ah, what a beautiful corpse!" he exclaimed at once. "Death… 'tis beautiful to behold… But, my God, what's this!" said he upon catching sight of the blood, the knife. "It must have been an assassin… only a moment ago… ah, Great God, how stiff he must be now, the person who did that."

    And, frigging himself:

    "How I would have loved to see him strike that blow!"

    And fondling the corpse, moving his hand over its belly:

    "Pregnant?… No, apparently not. What a pity."

    And continuing to explore with his hands:

    "Superb flesh! It's still warm… a lovely breast."

    Wherewith he bent over her and kissed her mouth with incredible emotion:

    "Still drooling," he said; "how I adore this saliva!"

    And once again he drove his tongue almost into her gullet; no one could possibly have played the role more convincingly than did that girl, she lay stock-still, and whenever the Duc drew near she ceased entirely to breathe. Finally, he rolled her over upon her stomach:

    "I must have a look at this lovely ass," he murmured.

    And after having scanned it:

    "Jesus Christ! What matchless buttocks!"

    And then he opened them, kissed them, and we distinctly saw him place his tongue in that cunning little hole.

    "Oh, upon my word!" he cried, sweating with admiration, "this is certainly one of the most superb corpses I have ever seen in my life; happy he who took this girl's life, oh, enviable person, what pleasure he must have known!"

    The very idea made him discharge; he was lying beside her, squeezing her, his thighs glued against her buttocks, and he discharged upon her asshole, giving out unbelievable signs of pleasure, and, as he yielded his sperm, crying like a demon:

    "Ah fuck, fuck, ah good God, if only I had killed her, if only I had been the one!"

    Thus the operation ended, the libertine rose and disappeared; we entered the room to resurrect our brave little friend. She was exhausted, unable to budge: constraint, fright, everything had numbed her senses, she was about ready in all earnestness to become the character she had just personified so expertly. We departed with four louis the valet gave us; as you may well imagine, he doubtless surrendered no more than half of our pay.

    "Ye living gods!" cried Curval, "now that is a passion! To say the least, the thing has flavor, aroma."

    "I'm as stiff as a mule," said the Duc; "I'll stake my fortune on it, that fellow had other tricks up his sleeve."

    "Right you are, my Lord," said Martaine; "he now and again employed a greater realism. I think Madame Desgranges and I have evidence to prove it to you."

    "And what the devil are you going to do while waiting?" Curval asked the Duc.

    "Don't disturb me, don't disturb me," the Duc shouted, "I'm fucking my daughter, I'm pretending she's dead."

    "Rascal," Curval rejoined, "that makes two crimes in your head."

    "Ah, by fuck," said the Duc, "would that they were more real…"

    And his impure seed burst into Julie's vagina.

    "Well now, Duclos, what comes next? Go on with your stories," said he as soon as he had finished his affair, "go on, my dear friend, don't allow the President to discharge, for I can hear him over there effecting an incestuous connection with his daughter; the funny little fellow is working up some evil ideas in his head; his parents have made me his tutor, they expect me to keep an eye on his behavior and I'd be distressed were it to become perverted."

    "Too late," said Curval, "too late, old man, I'm discharging; ah, Christ be doublefucked, 'tis a pretty death."

    And while encunting Adelaide, the scoundrel fancied to himself, as had the Duc, that he was fucking his murdered daughter; O incredible distraction of the mind of a libertine, who can naught hear, naught see, but he would imitate it that instant!

    "Duclos, you must indeed continue," said the Bishop, "else I'll be seduced by those bawdy fellows' example, and in my present state I might carry things a good deal further than they."

    Some time after that last adventure I went alone to the home of another libertine, said Duclos, whose mania, more humiliating perhaps, was not however so saturnine. He receives me in a drawing room whose floor was covered with a very handsome rug. He bids me remove all I am wearing and then, having me get down on my hands and knees:

    "Let's see," says he, stroking and patting the heads of two great Danes lying on either side of his chair, "let's see whether you are as nimble and quick as my dogs. Ready? Go get it!"

    And with that he tosses some large roasted chestnuts on the floor; speaking to me as if I were an animal, he says:

    "Go fetch them!"

    I run on all fours after a chestnut, thinking it best to play the game with good humor and enter into the spirit of his eccentricity; I run along, I say, I endeavor to bring back the chestnuts, but the two dogs, also springing forward, outrun me, seize the chestnuts, and take them back to their master.

    "Well, you're clearly in need of some practice before you'll be in good form," said the gentleman; "it's not, by chance, that you are afraid my dogs might bite you? Don't worry yourself about them, my dear, they'll do you no harm, but inwardly, you know, they'll look down upon you if they see that you're a clumsy creature. So let's try again - try harder. Here's your chance to get even… bring it back!"

    Another chestnut thrown, another victory carried off by the dogs, another defeat for me; well, to make a long story short, the game lasted two hours, during which I managed to get the chestnut only once and to bring it back in my mouth to him who had thrown it. But whether triumphant or bested, never did the dogs do me any harm; on the contrary, they seemed to be having a good time playing and to be amused by me, quite as though I were a dog too.

    "That's enough," said the gentleman. "You've worked hard enough; it's time to eat."

    He rang, a servant entered.

    "Bring some food for my animals," he said.

    And a moment later the servant returned, carrying an ebony feeding trough which was filled with a kind of very delicate chopped meat. He set the trough on the floor.

    "Very well," my gentlemen said to me, "get down and eat with my dogs, and try to put on a better show while eating than you did while playing."

    There was nothing for me to reply; I had to obey. Still on all fours, I plunged my head into the trough; the trough was very clean, the food very good, I fell to munching away beside the dogs, which very politely moved over, leaving me peacefully to my share. And that was the critical instant for our libertine; the humiliation of a woman, the degradation to which he reduced her, wonderfully stimulated his spirits.

    "Oh, the buggress!" said he, frigging himself assiduously, "the tramp, look at her there, gorging herself with the dogs, that's how one should deal with all women, and if they were to be handled thus, we'd have no more sauciness from them, ah no! Domestic animals like those dogs, why should they not be treated in the same way? Ah! impudent bitch that you are, whore, slime, scum!" he cried, stepping near and spraying his fuck over my bum, "buggress, I'll have you eat with my dogs."

    And that was the end of that; our man vanished, I dressed promptly, and lying by my mantelet I found two louis, the current price and doubtless the one the rogue was accustomed to paying for his pleasures.

    At this point, Messieurs, Duclos continued, I am obliged to retrace my steps and, by way of conclusion to the evening's narrations, to recount two adventures I had during my youth. As they are somewhat on the strong side, they would have been out of place amidst the mild escapades with which you had me start at the beginning of the month; and so I set them aside and kept them for the end of my contribution.

    I was only sixteen at the time, and was still with Madame Guerin; I had been sent to the home of a man of unchallenged distinction, and, upon arriving there, was simply told to wait in a small antechamber, told to be at my ease, told to be sure to obey the lord who would soon be coming to sport with me; but they were careful not to tell me anything else: I'd not have had such a fright if I'd been forewarned, and our libertine would certainly not have had as much pleasure. I had been in the room for about an hour when the door opened at last. It was the master of the house himself.

    "What the devil are you doing here," he demanded with an air of surprise, "at this time of day?… What about it, whore!" he cries, seizing me by the throat and all but choking the breath out of me, "what about it! Has the slut come here to rob me?"

    He calls to someone, a trustworthy servant immediately appears.

    "La Fleur," says his angry master, "I've got a thief here; she was hiding when I came in. Strip her and prepare to carry out the orders I give you."

    La Fleur does as he is told, I am despoiled of my clothes in a trice, they are tossed aside as they are peeled off my body.

    "Very well," the libertine says to his servant, "go find a sack, then sew this creature up inside it and toss her into the river."

    The valet goes to find the sack. I leave it to you to wonder whether I did not take advantage of these few moments to cast myself at the nobleman's feet and beg him to spare me, assuring him that it was Madame Guerin, his usual procuress, who had herself sent me to his house. But the lewd gentleman will have none of it, he grasps my two buttocks, and kneading them brutally between his fists:

    "Why, fuck my eyes," says he, "I think I'll feed this pretty ass to the fish."

    That was the single lubricious action he seemed inclined to permit himself, and until then he had exposed nothing which might have led me to suppose libertinage had something to do with the scene. The valet returns, bringing a sack with him; despite all my protests, and they were heated, I am dumped into it, the mouth of the sack is sewn up, and La Fleur lifts me upon his shoulders. It was then I heard the effects of our libertine's mounting crisis; he had probably begun to frig himself as soon as I had been put in the sack. At the same instant La Fleur raised me to his shoulders, the villain's fuck departed him.

    "Into the river, into the river, do you hear me, La Fleur?" he said, stammering with pleasure. "Yes, into the river with her, and you'll slip a stone into the sack, so that the whore will drown all the more quickly."

    And that was all he had to say, I was borne out, we went into the adjacent room where La Fleur, having ripped open the sack, returned me my clothes, gave me two louis, and also gave me some unequivocal proof of the manner, radically unlike his master's, in which he conducted himself in the pursuit of happiness; then I returned to Guerin's. I severely scolded Guerin for having sent me there so poorly prepared; to placate me, she arranged another party: it took place two days later, and I was even less well prepared for the battle I was to wage with this new foe.

    More or less as in the adventure I have just related, I was to go and wait in an antechamber of the apartment belonging to a farmer-general, but this time I waited in the company of the valet who, sent thither by his master, had come to fetch me at Guerin's. To while away the time before my gentleman's arrival, the valet diverted me by bringing out and displaying several precious stones kept in a desk drawer in the room.

    "Bless me," said the good pander, "were you to take one or two of them I don't fancy it would make much difference; the old Croesus is so damned rich I wager he doesn't even know how many of 'em or what kind he's got here in his desk. Go right ahead, if you like, don't bother yourself about me, I'm not the sort of fellow to betray a little friend."

    Alas! I was only too well disposed to follow this perfidious advice; you know my predilections, I've told you about them; and so, without his having to say another word, I put my hand upon a little gold box worth seven or eight louis, not daring to make off with any more valuable object. That was all that rascal of a valet desired, and to avoid having to return to the matter later on, I afterward learned that, had I refused to take something, he would, without my being aware of it, have slipped a jewel or two into my pocket. The master arrives, greets me with kindness and courtesy, the valet leaves the room, we two remain there together. This man, unlike the other, amused himself in a very real sense; he scattered a profusion of kisses over my ass, had me flog him, fart in his mouth, he put his prick in mine, and in one word had his fill of every kind and shape of lubricity save for that sometimes sought in the cunt; but 'twas all to no purpose, he did not discharge. The propitious moment for that had not yet come, all this he had been doing was secondary, preparatory; you will soon see to what it was leading.

    "Why, my stars!" he suddenly exclaimed, "it had entirely slipped my mind. There's a domestic still waiting in the other room for a gem I just a moment ago promised to give him for his master. Excuse me, my dear, but I really must keep my word to him; then we'll get back to work."

    Guilty of the little larceny I'd just committed at the instigation of that accursed valet, you may well suppose that this remark made me tremble. I thought for an instant to stop him, confess to the theft, then I decided it would be better to play innocent and run the risk. He opens the desk, looks through first one drawer then the next, rummages about, and failing to find what he is after, he darts furious glances at me.