Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (253 page)

‘Well, Briancourt,’ said he, ‘I congratulate you upon your new acquisition. Nobody’s presence could have given me more pleasure than Des Grieux’s.’

Hardly had these words been uttered than a nimble hand snatched off my mask.

Ten mouths at least were ready to kiss me, a score of hands were fondling me; but Briancourt put himself between them and me.

‘For this evening,’ said he, ‘Camille is like a sugar-plum on a cake, something to be looked at and not touched. Rene and he are on their honeymoon yet, and this fete is given in their honor, and in that of my new lover Achmet effendi.’ And, turning round, he introduced us to the young man whom he was to portray as Jesus Christ. ‘And now,’ said he, ‘let us go in to supper.’

The room, or hall, into which we were led was furnished something like a triclinium, with beds or couches instead of chairs.

‘My friend,’ said the general’s son, ‘the supper is a scanty one, the courses are neither many nor abundant, the meal is rather to invigorate than to satiate. I hope, however, that the generous wines and stimulating drinks will enable us all to return to our pleasures with renewed eagerness.’

 
— Still, I suppose it was a supper worthy of Lucullus?

 
— I hardly remember it now. I only recollect that it was the first time I tasted bouillabaisse, and some sweet spiced rice made after the Indian recipe, and that I found both delicious.

I had Teleny on my couch beside me, and Dr. Charles was my next neighbor. He was a fine, tall, well-built, broad-shouldered man, with a fair-flowing beard, for which — as well as for his name and size — he had been nicknamed Charlemagne. I was surprised to see him wearing round his neck a fine Venetian gold chain, to which was hanging — as I first thought — a locket, but which, on closer examination, proved to be a gold laurel wreath studded with brilliants. I asked him if it were a talisman or a relic?

He, thereupon, standing up,— ‘My friends, Des Grieux here — whose lover I fain would be — asks me what this jewel is; and as most of you have already put me the same question, I’ll satisfy you all now, and hold my peace forevermore about it.

‘This laurel wreath,’ he said, holding it up between his fingers, ‘is the reward of merit — or rather, I should say, of chastity: it is my couronne de rosiere. Having finished my medical studies and walked the hospitals, I found myself a doctor; but what I could never find was a single patient who would give me not twenty, but a single franc piece for all the physic I administered him. When, one day, Dr. N — n seeing my brawny arms — and in fact he had arms like a Hercules — recommended me to an old lady, whose name I’ll not mention, for massage. In fact I went to this old dame, whose name is not Potiphar, and who, as I took off my coat and tucked up my sleeves, cast a longing glance upon my muscles and then seemed lost in meditation; afterwards I concluded that she was calculating the rule of proportions.

‘Dr. N — n had told me that the weakness of the nerves in her lower limbs was from the knees downwards. She, however, seemed to think that it was from the knees upwards. I was ingenuously puzzled, and — not to make a mistake — I rubbed from the foot upwards; but soon I remarked that the higher I went the more softly she purred.

‘After about ten minutes,— “I am afraid I am tiring you,” said I; “perhaps it is enough for the first time.”’

‘“Oh,” replied she, with the languishing eyes of an old fish, “I could be rubbed by you the whole day. I already feel such a benefit. “Vbu have a man’s hand for strength, a woman’s for softness. But you must be tired, poor fellow! Now, what will you take — Madeira, or dry sherry?”

‘“Nothing, thank you.”

‘“A glass of champagne and a biscuit?”

‘“No, thanks.”

“‘\bu must take something. Oh, I know! — a tiny glass of Alkermes from the Certosa of Florence. “Vfes, I think I’ll sip one with you myself. I already feel so much better for the rubbing.” And thereupon she pressed my hand tenderly. “Will you have the kindness to ring?”

‘I did so. We both sipped a glass of Alkermes, which a servant-man brought in soon afterwards, and then I took my leave. She, however, only allowed me to go, after full assurance that I’d not fail to call the following day.

‘On the morrow I was there at the appointed hour. She first made me sit down by the bedside, to rest awhile. She pressed my hand and tenderly patted it — that hand, she said, which had done her so much good, and which was to operate marvelous cures ere long. “Only, doctor,” added she, simpering, “the pain has gone higher up.”

‘I could hardly keep from smiling, and I began to ask myself of what nature this pain was.

‘I set myself to rub. From the broad ankle my hand went up to the knee, then higher, and always higher, to her evident satisfaction. When at last it had reached the top of her legs,— “There, there, doctor! you have hit it,” she said, in a soft, purring voice; “how clever you are to find the right spot. Rub gently all around there. “Vfes, like that; neither higher up nor lower down — a little more broadwise, perhaps — just a leetle more in the middle, doctor! Oh, what good it does me to be rubbed like that! I feel quite another person; ever so much younger — quite frisky, in fact. Rub, doctor, rub!” And she rolled in the bed rapturously, after the fashion of an old tabby.

Then, all at once,— “But I think you are mesmerizing me, doctor! Oh, what fine blue eyes you have! I can see myself in your luminous pupils as in a mirror.” Thereupon, putting an arm round my neck, she began to pull me down on her, and to kiss me eagerly — or I ought rather to say, to suck me with two thick lips that felt against mine like huge horseleeches.

‘Seeing that I could not go on with my massage, and getting to understand at last what kind of friction she required, I pushed aside the tufts of coarse, crisp, and thick hair, I introduced the tip of my finger between the bulgy lips, and tickled, rubbed, and chafed the full-sized and frisky clitoris in such a way that I soon made it piss copiously; that, however — far from soothing and satisfying her — only titillated and excited her; so that after this there was no escaping from her clutches. She was, moreover, holding me by the right sort of handle, and I could not afford — like Joseph — to run away and leave it in her hand.

‘To calm her, therefore, nothing else was left to me but to get on top of her and administer another kind of massage, which I did with as good a grace as I could, although, as you are all aware, I never cared for women, and above all, for stale ones. Still — for a woman and an old one — she was not so bad, after all. Her lips were thick, fleshy, and bulgy; the sphincter had not got relaxed with age, the erectile tissue had lost none of its muscular strength, her grip was powerful, and the pleasure she gave me was not to be despised. I therefore poured two libations into her before I got from over her, during which time she from purring began to mew, and then actually to shriek like a screech-owl, so great was the pleasure she was deriving.

‘Whether true or not, she said that she had never felt such pleasure all her life. Anyhow, the cure I effected was a wonderful one, for she shortly afterwards quite recovered the use of her legs. Even N — n was proud of me. It is to her and to my arms that I owe my position as a masseur.’

‘Well, and that jewel!’ said I.

‘Yes, I was quite forgetting it. The summer came, so she had to leave town and go to a watering-place, where I had no wish to follow her; she consequently made me swear that I’d not have a single woman during her absence. I, of course, did so with an easy conscience and a light heart.

‘When she came back, she made me take my oath again, after which she unbuttoned my trousers, dragged out Sir Priapus, and in due form crowned him as a Rosiere.

‘I may say, however, that he was not at all stiff-necked and uppish; nay, he seemed so overcome — perhaps he thought he did not deserve this honor — that he bowed down his head quite meekly. I used to wear that jewel on my chain, but everyone kept asking me what it was. I told her of it, and she presented me with this chain and made me wear it round my neck.’

The agape had come to an end, the spiced aphrodisiac dishes, the strong drinks, the merry conversation, stirred up again our sluggish lust. Little by little the position on every couch became more provoking, the jokes more obscene, the songs more lascivious; the mirth was more uproarious, the brains were all aglow, the flesh was tingling with newly- awakened desire. Almost every man was naked, every phallus was stiff and stark; it seemed quite a pandemonium of lewdness.

One of the guests showed us how to make a Priapean fountain, or the proper way of sipping liqueurs. He got a young Ganymede to pour a continuous thread of Chartreuse out of a long-beaked silver ewer down on Briancourt’s chest. The liquid trickled down the stomach and through the tiny curls of the jet- black, rose-scented hair, all along the phallus, and into the mouth of the man kneeling in front of him. The three men were so handsome, the group so classic, that a photograph was taken of it by limelight.

‘It’s very pretty,’ said the Spahi, ‘but I think I can show you something better still.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Briancourt.

‘The way they eat preserved dates stuffed with pistachioes in Algiers; and as you happen to have some on the table, we can try it.’

The old general chuckled, evidently enjoying the fun.

The Spahi then made his bedfellow go on all fours, with his head down and his backside up; then he carefully placed the dates where he wanted them.

‘Wait, don’t get up yet,’ said the Spahi, ‘I haven’t yet quite finished; let me just put the fruit of the tree of knowledge into it.’ Thereupon he got on him, and taking his instrument in his hand, he pressed it into the hole in which the dates had been; and slippery as the gap was, it disappeared entirely after a thrust or two.

At the sight of this tableau vivant of hellish concupiscence, all our blood rose bubbling to our heads. Everyone seemed eager to enjoy what those men were feeling. Every unhooded phallus was not only full of blood, but as stiff as a rod of iron, and painful in its erection. Everyone was writhing as if tormented by an inward convulsion. I myself, not inured to such sights, was groaning with pleasure, maddened by Teleny’s exciting kisses, and by the doctor, who was pressing his lips on the soles of my feet.

Finally, by the lusty thrusts the Spahi was now giving, we understood that the last moment had come. It was like an electric shock amongst us all.

‘They enjoy, they enjoy!’ was the cry, uttered from every lip.

All the couples were cleaving together, kissing each other, rubbing their naked bodies one against the other, trying what new excess their lechery could devise.

When at last the Spahi pulled his limp organ out, the sodomized man fell senseless on the couch, all covered with perspiration.

‘Ah!’ said the Spahi, quietly lighting a cigarette, ‘what pleasures can be compared with those of the Cities of the Plain? The Arabs are right. They are our masters in this art; for there, if every man is not passive in his manhood, he is always so in early youth and in old age, when he cannot be active any longer. They — unlike ourselves — know by long practice how to prolong this pleasure for an everlasting time. Their instruments are not huge, but they swell out to goodly proportions. They are skilled in enhancing their own pleasure by the satisfaction they afford to others. They do not flood you with watery sperm, they squirt on you a few thick drops that burn you like fire. How smooth and glossy their skin is! What a lava is bubbling in their veins! They are not men, they are lions; and they roar to lusty purpose.’

‘You must have tried a good many, I suppose?’

‘Scores of them; I enlisted for that, and I must say I did enjoy myself. Why, Viscount, your implement would only tickle me agreeably, if you could only keep it stiff long enough.’

Then pointing to a broad flask that stood on the table, ‘Why, that bottle there could, I think, be easily thrust in me, and only give me pleasure.’

‘Will you try?’ said many voices.

‘Why not?’

‘No, you had better not,’ warned Dr. Charles, who had crept by my side.

‘Why, what is there to be afraid of?’

‘It is a crime against nature,’ said the physician, smiling.

‘In fact, it would be worse than buggery, it would be bottlery,’ laughed Briancourt.

For all answer the Spahi threw himself face upwards on the ledge of the couch, with his bum uplifted towards us. Then two men went and sat on either side, so that he might rest his legs on their shoulders.

‘Who will have the goodness to moisten and lubricate the edges a little?’

Many seemed anxious to give themselves that pleasure, but it was allotted to one who had modestly introduced himself as a maitre de langues, ‘although with my proficiency’ — he added— ‘I might well call myself professor in the noble art.’ He was indeed a man who bore the weight of a great name, not only of old lineage — never sullied by any plebeian blood — but also famous in war, statesmanship, in literature and in science. He went on his knees before that mass of flesh, usually called an arse, pointed his tongue like a lance-head, and darted it in.

‘Now,’ said he, with the pride of an artist who has just finished his work, ‘my task is done.’

Another person had taken the bottle, and had rubbed it over with the grease of a pate de foie gras, then he began to press it in.