Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights
by Alfred de Musset, translated by unknown translator
Second part
2192203Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights — Second partnot mentionedAlfred de Musset

SECOND PART


I thought that Fanny, being still young, and with an innocent heart, would never remember Gamiani except with feelings of horror and disgust. I surrounded her with affection and loving caresses which were the gentlest and sweetest that I could possibly lavish on anyone. Sometimes I fatigued her with the excess of pleasure, in the hope that she would never again have any liking for other forms of passion than those admitted by nature, which unites the opposite sexes in the pleasures of body and soul.

Alas! I was mistaken.

Her imagination had been perverted, it carried her beyond all our lawful pleasures. In Fanny's eyes nothing could possibly equal the amorous transports of her friend, Gamiani. Our most voluptuous nights seemed to her to be cold, ordinary caresses, compared with the frenzied passion she had known on that fatal night.

She had sworn to me she would never see Gamiani again, but this oath did not extinguish the desire that she nourished secretly. She struggled against it in vain; this inner conflict only resulted in her feeling greatly irritated. I soon realised that she would not be able to resist her desire much longer. I had lost her confidence: and I had to contrive a hiding place in order to watch her.

Having made a spy-hole, cunningly concealed, that gave me a view of her bedroom, I soon saw how unhappy she was. She used to lie on her ottoman and cry, and turn from side to side with a look of desperation on her face. She would then suddenly tear off her clothes and stand naked before her mirror, with a wild look in her eyes.

She used to touch her parts, strike herself, excite herself sensually with an insane and brutal frenzy. I felt that there was no cure for her, but I wanted to see to what ends she would go.

One evening I was at my spy-hole, Fanny was ready for bed, when I heard her cry out:

FANNY

Who's there? Is it you, Angelica?… What, it is you, Gamiani! Oh… madame, I was far from expecting

GAMIANI

Of course, you avoid me, you drive me away; I have had to resort to stratagem. I have sent your servants away on false pretexts, so now, here I am.

FANNY

I cannot understand you, and still less can I account for your persistence; but if I have kept what I know of you a secret, my flat refusal to receive you ought to have told you plainly enough that your presence here is uncalled for and hateful to me… I spurn you, I detest you… Leave me, I pray of you, avoid creating a scandal.

GAMIANI

My arrangements are made, my mind is made up: you can do nothing against me, Fanny; oh, my patience was quite exhausted.

FANNY

Well, what do you suppose you are going to do now? Do you want to try to take me by force, to outrage me, to drag me in filth… Oh no, madame, go away, or I will call my servants.

GAMIANI

My child, we are quite alone; the doors are locked and the keys thrown out of the window. You are mine… But don't be alarmed there is nothing to fear.

FANNY

For God's sake, do not touch me.

GAMIANI

Fanny, all resistance is useless. You will always give way to me. I am stronger than you, and I am on fire with passion. No man could overpower me. Ha, ha! she is trembling… she has turned quite pale. My God! Fanny, my Fanny… She is fainting. Oh, what have I done? Come, wake up, darling… wake up. If I hold you thus to my breast, it is for love of you. I love you so dearly, my life, my soul. Why will you not understand me… I am not spiteful, my sweetheart, my darling one… No, I am good, I am kind to you, for I love you. Look into my eyes, feel how my heart beats. It beats only for you. I only want to see you happy, intoxicated with love in my arms. Oh, let me wake you with my kisses. Oh, what madness… I worship, I adore this child.

FANNY

You will kill me. My God! Go away, leave me alone; you are horrible.

GAMIANI

Horrible!... horrible? Who then can inspire you with such horror? And am I not a beautiful woman? Am I not still young? Everybody else says so. And my heart: is there one anywhere that can love better than mine? The fire that slumbers within me, that consumes my nature, the burning fire of Italy that doubles my strength and gives me the victory when others are vanquished, is that then a horrible thing?…… Tell the truth… What is a man or a lover compared with me? Two or three rounds of love with a woman and he is done for; if he tries a fourth time, he groans in his failure and his loins give way in the spasm of pleasure. As for me! I remain ever strong, quivering with passion, always fresh, never satisfied. Ah yes, I personify the ardent joys of the thing, the fiery delights of the flesh., Lustful, ever unappeased, I give endless pleasure. I am the love which kills…

FANNY

Enough, Gamiani, enough.

GAMIANI

No, no, you shall hear me. Listen Fanny. To lie naked side by side, to feel that we are young and beautiful, soft, perfumed, to be burning with desire and trembling with pleasure; to feel each other, to mingle our beings together, to give up body and spirit in a sigh of satisfied love, only one cry, a cry of love… Fanny that is heaven!

FANNY

What a speech! What looks!…… And I listen to you, I do not drive you away… Oh, have pity on me, I am weak and you fascinate me… What is then the power you possess? You mix in my flesh and blood, you mingle in my whole being, you are a poison… Oh, yes, you are horrible, and yet I love you…

GAMIANI

I love you, I love you. Say it again! Oh that is a word that burns.

Gamiani was pale, she knelt motionless, with wide open eyes, with clasped hands before Fanny. She looked as though the heavens had suddenly changed her into marble. She was sublime in her appearance of ecstasy and abnegation.

FANNY

Yes, yes, I love you with all the strength of my nature. I want you, I am dying for you. Oh, I am going mad over you.

GAMIANI

What do you say, my beloved? What is it you say? I am so happy. Your hair is lovely, how silky it is! It slips through my fingers: so golden, and as fine as silk. Your forehead is snowy white and pure, more beautiful than a lily. Your eyes are sweet, your mouth beautiful too. You are white, like satin, with such a natural perfume, an angel from head to foot. You are the angel of voluptuousness. Oh, these dresses, these laces, these strings… Take them all off, let me see you naked… Be quick, come to me, I am already undressed. Ah, that's fine. You are dazzling… Stand up, let me admire your beauty. If only I could paint, draw your portrait in one moment… Wait, let me kiss your feet, your knees, your breast, your lips.

Kiss me, hold me tight, tighter. Ah, what happiness… what joy… She loves me!

The two bodies now made only one. Only the two heads were a little apart, and the eyes looked into each other with a ravishing expression. Their lips were trembling, laughing or glued to each other in ecstasy.

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The eyes blazed with passion, the cheeks were quite red. I heard one woman heave a sigh, the other did the same. Then there was a greather, stifled cry, and the two women remained motionless.

FANNY

You made me happy, so happy.

GAMIANI

And I was happy too, Fanny darling, with a happiness that I had never known before. Our souls and our senses were united at our lips… Let us get on your bed, let us have an intoxicating night of pleasure!

While speaking thus, they went over to the bed. Fanny lay down first, and stretched herself out voluptuously: Gamiani kneeling at the bedside, drew Fanny to her bosom, and held her in her arms.

Without a word, she looked long at her with devotion. Then they began to sport with each other. They exchanged many kisses, and then their hands got to work, very expert in delicate, exciting touches. Fanny's eyes expressed desire and expectation: Gamiani's showed the disorder of her senses. Flushed in the face and stimulated by the fires of pleasure, they both seemed to my eyes to be simply sparkling all over. These furiously amorous devotees of passion lent poetry to the excess of their lust: they appealed to the senses and the imagination at the same time.

It was no use trying to reason with myself, and to condemn these erotic follies in my heart; I soon felt myself moved, excited, possessed with desire. Finding myself absolutely unable to reach those nude women, I felt like a wild beast tormented at rutting time in a cage, through the bars of which he could see his female.

I stood stupidly still, my head fixed to the aperture whence I was, so to speak, inhaling my torture, a real torture of the damned, terrible, unbearable. A torture that seizes you first by the head, then runs in the blood, then into the bones and the spinal marrow, which seems then to burn. It seemed to me that my nerves were in such a frightful state of tension, that they must break. My clenched bands gripped the floor. I no longer breathed properly, I was foaming at the mouth.

My head turned round and round. I was going mad. I felt my manly force unruly between my fingers, then it stiffened for a moment and dissolved in a shower of burning liquid like a rain of fire. Truly a strange spending, that knocks you over, that leaves you powerless.

As I recovered, I felt enervated. My eyelids were heavy, my head was splitting. I wanted to leave my post: a sigh of Fanny's held me back. The demon of the flesh had conquered me. While my hands grew weary of trying to bring new life back to my manhood, I strained my eyes with trying to see the scene before me, that had so upset my nerves and brain.

The poses of the lovers had changed. My lesbians had crossed each other like two V's, trying to mingle their mossy hairs together, to rub their parts one against the other. They attacked and repelled each others bodies in turn, with a strength and persistence that only the approach of the spasm of pleasure can give to women.

One would have thought, to see them at it, that they were trying to split each other open, to break each others thighs, their efforts were so violent, their breathing so noisy, so gasping.

"Oh dear me," cried Fanny, "I must stop, it is killing me!"

"Go on alone, keep on"… answered Gamiani. "I am nearly coming. Push! Go on… Now its coming… I think I have skinned myself. Ah… ah… ah."

Fanny's head fell to one side helpless. Gamiani drew her head back, bit into the bedclothes, chewed her hair that floated round her.

I watched their every movement, their transports, and I reached at the same time the height of sensual enjoyment myself.

FANNY

How tired I am! I am worn out, but what lovely pleasure I have had!…

GAMIANI

The longer the effort lasts, the harder it is to come, the longer and more intense are our spendings.

FANNY

Yes, I have found that out, I was more than five minutes plunged in a sort of mystic dizziness: I felt the irritation in all my limbs. This rubbing of the hairy mounts of Venus together, with your stiff tuft pressed in my tender lips made the fire of lustful rage stream through my veins. I squirmed and twisted in the luxury of my over-excited genital sense. O madness, O extremity of joy… to spend! Oh, how I understand the meaning of this word now!

One thing however surprises me, Gamiani. How is it that although still young, you know so much about loving sensations? All our extravagances surpass every delight that I thought possible. What is the source of this passion that troubles me, that confounds my judgment, that sometimes frightens me? Nature surely never made us so.

GAMIANI

You would like to know my nature, to hear my history.

Very well Fanny darling, clasp me in your arms, cross your legs round me and I will do the same. I am going to relate my life in the convent. It is a story that may excite us, and that will certainly rouse new desires in us.

FANNY

I am all ears, Gamiani dear.

GAMIANI

You have not forgotten the fearful torture that my aunt inflicted on me, to serve her monstruous lust. The moment I had realised how vile her behaviour to me had been, I collected the necessary documents to guarantee me the use of my fortune. I also took a few jewels and some money, and seizing the opportunity in my aunt's absence, I went for refuge to the Convent of the Nuns of the Redemption.

The Mother Superior, being no doubt touched by my tender age and shy appearance, took me at once to her arms with a loving welcome, so that my fear and anxiety were immediately at an end.

I told her all that had happened, and begged her to shelter me and protect me from my cruel aunt. The superior embraced me affectionately, called me her little girl, and seemed to take me to her heart. Seating me beside her, she related the calm and regular life of the convent: she excited still more the hatred I already felt for men, and concluded with a pious exhortation, that I thought the language of a saint. To render the change from life in the outer world to that of the convent easier for me, she kindly agreed to make me her special protégée, and to allow me to sleep every night in the alcove of her bedroom.

From the second night we were happily chatting of everything like mother and daughter, but the superior could not sleep, she kept turning over in her bed. She complained of the chilly night, and said I should come into her bed, it would be nicer and warmer for both of us. I was surprised to find she was quite naked under the bedclothes.

"One sleeps much better" she said, "without a nightdress."

I got into her bed to please her.

"Oh, my little sweetheart," she cried, as she felt my warm body, "you are feverish! How soft and smooth your skin is. What brutes they were to make you suffer so much! Tell me what they really did to you—did they beat you? Tell me everything, sweet child!" So I began to tell her all my story, omitting no detail, even of the most scandalous parts, and these seemed to interest her the most. She felt such intense pleasure listening to me that from time to time she trembled and quivered all over.

"My poor child, my poor little darling!" she kept on repeating, each time pressing me closer into her body.

And then gradually, without exactly realising how it came about, I found myself lying on top of her naked belly and breasts. She had thrown up her legs and crossed them over my loins, her arms were tightly and lovingly clasped round my neck. Her delicious warm odour penetrated me through and through. I began to feel a strange but lovely sensation thrilling my nerves and veins, and that felt as soothing as warm new milk.

As she held me thus pressed to her bosom, I murmured: "Oh, how kind you are to me, so kind that I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I shall never, never want to leave you."

I opened my mouth as I laid my lips over hers, so as to take her loving kisses deeper into my soul, then I began to speak again and said: "Oh, yes! I love you so passionately, I could die for you… I don't know what it is, but you make me feel so lovely, it is so nice…"

The superior's hands were gently stroking me all over. Her warm body began also to heave and move gently to and fro under me. Her bristling hairy bush between her legs mingled with my tiny silky one, and nearly drove me crazy with its tickling and exciting pricking. I got such thrills all up and down the back that I started to tremble all over. Then as I felt a lingering, deeply penetrating kiss from the superior, I suddenly stopped. "For God's sake, stop… let me go. Ah…" And my nature came down in such a fragrant shower of dew, too delicious for words.

As soon as this feeling of overwhelming ecstazy had passed a little, instead of feeling at all tired, I threw myself with a newly awakened passion on top of my charming bed-fellow, and smothered her with kisses. Then I took her hand and guided it into the little pinky slit, that she had just been rubbing and exciting so terribly.

The superior could now see for herself how hot I had become, and letting herself go, showed the amorous nature of a Bacchante to the full. We fingered and kissed and tickled and bit each other in a sublime and loving rage. How supple and active were this woman's limbs! Her flexible body bent and writhed in a marvellous manner. I was astounded. I could not keep pace with her. I hardly had time to return one kiss for the thousands that she rained down on every nook and cranny of my passionate young body. I thought she was going to eat me, to devour the parts she loved so well!

This incredible suppleness, this agility in the game of love worked me up to a state of desire and frenzy that I cannot really find words to describe.

Oh, Fanny, what a pity that you were not there to witness our transports of love, our fiery amourous attacks! If you could only have witnessed how erotically mad and breathless we were with our new-found game, you would have fully understood what the overpowering might of sensuality will make of two passionate and loving women!

At one moment I found she had caught my head between her thighs. I thought I could guess what she wanted. Inspired by my own lust, I then began to tongue her in her most secret parts.

But that was not what she desired most. She quickly pulled me up. reversed me over her, and slipping down in the bed, gently, tenderly drew my longing thighs apart, and glued her mouth to me.

Her nervous, quivering, pointed tongue tickled me, pressed me, glided into my roseleaf orifice like a fine dagger, rapidly thrust in and withdrawn from a wound… Her teeth chattered… she seized my clitoris again and seemed to be going to tear my soft flesh… I began to bend about like a snake… I thrust back her head, and, twisted my hands in her long hair.

So then she let go: she touched me more gently still, she forced her spittle into me, licked me slowly, with lingering almost imperceptible tongue, or nibbled and sucked at my maidenhair and my skin with such refined and delicate sensual gentleness that only to think of her loving ways as she did that, makes me spend now. Oh what delights intoxicated me then. What frenzy possessed me! I screamed and groaned with voluptuousness, I fell back exhausted, or stiffened my body in a curve like an archer's bow, and still her pointed tongue gave me no respite, still it kept gliding in and out.

Then two thin strong lips took my clitoris, pinched it and sucked it till it drove me mad. No, Fanny, it is quite impossible to feel such sensation and to spend as I spent then more than once in a lifetime.

What extraordinary nervous tension I How my pulses beat! What ardent feelings in all my body, in my blood and brain! I was burning, melting, and I still felt an eager, unsatisfied mouth sucking the essence of my life out of my pussy.

I assure you, Fanny, I was sucked dry when I ought by rights to have been drowned in my own spending and blood. But ah! How supremely happy I was. And, oh Fanny, now I can't wait… Whenever I speak of those wonderful times I seem to feel the same devouring sensations. Oh, finish me off… Suck more quickly, harder… Yes, that's right now, I am coming…

Fanny was worse than a starving wolf.

"Enough, enough," Gamiani repeated. "You are draining me dry, you little devil. I did not think you were so clever, so expert, so passionate. But I see you are improving, the fire of lust is going through you."

FANNY

But how can it be otherwise? Any girl must be made of ice, lifeless and without a heart to stay cold with you.—What did you do after that?

GAMIANI

Having learnt so much myself then, I began to exhaust my ardent bedfellow. There was no longer the slightest reserve between us, and I soon learnt that the nuns of the Convent of the Redemption gave themselves fully up to the delights of sensual pleasures, that they had a secret meeting place where they could indulge in safety. Their witches' sabbath used to begin at complines, and terminated with matins.

The superior told me later what was her philosophy, and this shocked me so very much that I thought her the devil incarnate in female form. However, she reassured me by pleasantry and in particular amused me greatly with a description of how she had sacrificed her maidenhead. You could never guess to whom she yielded this treasure; the story is so singular it is really worth while listening to.

The superior, whom I shall call Sainte, was the daughter of a ship-captain. Her mother, a most intelligent woman had brought her up in a strictly religious manner. This however, did not prevent Sainte’s amorous temperament from developing at a very early age. When she was only twelve years old she was so tortured by carnal desires that she tried to get satisfaction for her passions by every trick and device that an ignorant imagination can possibly invent.

The unhappy girl used to finger her little slit every night. Her tiny fingers could not please her for long, and her youth and health suffered under this bad habit. One day, she observed a dog mounting a bitch. Her lascivious curiosity was aroused and she observed so closely how the dog worked, that she understood what she wanted to satisfy her burning appetite.

But this knowledge only increased her torments. Living in a lonely mansion, surrounded by old domestics, without a male being ever visiting the house, how could she hope to be able to find for her own use, that red, quivering, long pointed thing that had slid in and out the bitches hind quarters, and which she felt sure must also exist for human females?

After puzzling her brain a long time, she remembered having read that of all animals, that which the most closely resembles man,

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is the anthropoid ape. And her father kept a superb ourang-outang in a great strong cage. She went down in the garden to look at the ape one morning, and after she had been lounging a long time in front of its cage the animal, doubtless excited by the odour of the little girl's parts, developed in an astonishing manner the object of Sainte's unspoken desires. She danced for joy to see this long protuberance. Now she had at last found what she had been dreaming of. The ideal instrument appeared in all its reality. And to add to her enchantment, the exquisite jewel was thrust out farther to meet her, was longer and hotter than she had hoped for even. She positively devoured it with her eyes. The ape hung at the front bars of his cage, and began to work it about in such a way that Sainte quite lost her sang froid. Stimulated by her aroused lustful feelings, she forced one of the bars of the cage, so that the excited beast could meet her body. Eight good long inches stuck out, lovely. Such a rich prey at first frightened our sweet virgin. But inspired by the devil himself, she hasarded a little hand to grasp it, she touched it, tickled it, caressed it. The ape began to shake all over with raging passion, his grinning was terrible to see. Sainte terrified, thought it was Satan indeed in person. Her terror held her back, but not for long. She was going to run back into the house when one last glance at the tempting long red object decided her to risk it. She pulled her little frock up over her head, and resolutely, bravely, stepped backwards slowly with her bottom offering itself to the dangerous point; the struggle for entrance began, a few sharp strokes, and the ape was doing a man's work for the girl. Sainte was bestialized, raped, violated by the ape. Her joy, her delight were evident by cries of pleasure and pain, but so loud that her mother heard them, and running down the garden path found her little daughter spitted on the virile stake, twisting in agony and throwing her heart up!

FANNY

Oh, what a joke!

GAMIANI

To cure the poor little girl of her bestial love of the monkey, they shut her up in a convent.

FANNY

But it would have better to leave her at the mercy of all the apes!

GAMIANI

You will be able to judge better presently. To return to the story of my stay in the convent: as my temperament was suited to a life of sensuality, I willingly agreed to be initiated into the Dionysian mysteries of monastic life. My application having been accepted by the chapter of the monastery, I was introduced two days later. I arrived naked, as is the rule.

I took the oath required of me, and to conclude the ceremony, prostituted myself with the greatest courage on an enormous wooden priapus specially arranged for this purpose. I had hardly finished a painful and bloody libation when a crowd of the nuns rushed at me, more voracious than a troop of cannibals. I lent myself to all their fancies, I took the most frenetical lubricious poses; finally I executed an obscene dance, and was declared successful. I was exhausted.

A little sister, very lively, very vicious, more subtle than the superior herself, persuaded me to share her bed: she must have been indeed the most cursed tribade that ever came out of Hell. However I fell passionately in love with her wonderful vice, and we were almost always inseparable comrades during the great nocturnal festivals of lust.

FANNY

Where were your Lupercal festivals held?

GAMIANI

In a vast hall which had been decorated and furnished with voluptuous refinement. There were two great portals, hung with Oriental curtains covered with arabesques ànd fringed with gold. On the walls were tapestry plaques of blue velvet in frames of lemon wood, beautifully carved. Lofty mirrors, reaching to the ceiling were set at equal distances on either side. When these orgies were at their height, remarkable groups of delirious nuns participating were reflected in all these mirrors. All round the walls broad divans covered with soft cushions served as resting places, or settings for debauchery. One sank ankle deep in the softest carpets. The curtains, tapestries and even the carpets were woven and worked in a thousand lascivious designs, twenty erotic groups were there shown in every imaginable combination of amorous sport, enough to scourge into activity any desires, no matter how blasé the persons might be. Elsewhere, on the ceiling, in great oil-paintings, the most sensual pictures of debauchery were everywhere displayed. I well remember a certain Thyade with passionate gesture who was being amorously caressed by a Corybante, and it always excited me to the highest degree of sensual pleasure when I looked at it.

FANNY

That must have been delightful to see!

GAMIANI

Then again there were banks of flowers, with the most intoxicating perfume, to charm the eye and complete the decoration. The hall was evenly heated, and six magnificent alabaster lamps diffused a soft agreeable light.

All these arrangements gave birth to new and lovely desires, made one dream of all voluptuous things; it was Oriental, luxurious, poetic. There seemed to be all the mysteries of the harem, all the most secret delights of the East, and an ineffable charm and langourous ease.

FANNY

How lovely it must have been to be able to pass a night there with a beloved companion!

GAMIANI

Yes, surely, Cupid would have made it his own temple, if it had not been transformed every night into a rough and brutal knocking shop.

FANNY

What do you mean?

GAMIANI

As soon as it struck twelve, the nuns filed in, dressed only in a short black tunic that made the whiteness of their skin shine forth in the light of the lamps. Their flowing hair hung round their limbs, their legs were bare. Servants immediately arrived as if by enchantment with every possible luscious food, fruit and drink, which we partook of, reclining on the couches, divans and cushions. Everyone seemed to have a gluttonous appetite and all the good cheer disappeared from sight as if spirited away.

These women were so worn out by their unholy festivals, by the excess of their sexual enjoyments, that by the light of day they were pale and wan, but at night after the feast they began to take on color, and to look less like dead people. The vapors of rich wines, the highly spiced dishes, some seasoned with Spanish fly, set their minds and nerves on fire.

They began to talk loudly, and from obscene words soon came to equally obscene acts, immodest poses, laughter, while songs and cries of the most ribald character, drowned the clinking of wine glasses together, and the popping of corks. The most excited of the nuns, the randiest, fell on her neighbour, and gave her such a sounding kiss that it set the electric spark to the whole neighborhood. The different members of the convent paired off, and enlaced each other in the most vigorous and frenzied embraces. The sound of kisses on the parts of the bodies or the mingling of passionate pairs of lips could be heard, and these finished in sobbing and sighing words of love, or rose to cries of ecstatic abandonment.

It soon happened that the cheeks, the neck breasts and white shoulders failed to satisfy the unbridled desire for kisses. The tunics were pulled up high, or thrown off. Then a wonderful sight met the eye. All these nude bodies of women, supple, gracious, linked naked one to the other, all heaving and moving in unison, pressing each other tightly with the refinement of lust, with the impetuosity of consummate lasciviousness.

If the pleasure was so overwhelming that the final shower was long in coming, a couple would separate to take breath for a moment. The partners gazed into each others shining eyes, burning with desire, and there was a struggle as to which of them should take most attractive posture.

The one who was victorious by her gestures and vicious passion, saw her rival quickly rush to her, throw her over, cover her with kisses, devour her with caresses, devouring literally her most secret dwelling place of pleasure, and placing herself constantly in such a position as to receive the same attacks. The heads of the two nuns were hidden between the thighs of each other, they formed one single body, agitated, excited to convulsions, from which a stifled groan of intense sexual pleasure issued, followed by a triumphal cry of joy!

"They are coming! They're coming!" cried the other damned nuns immediately. And the mad girls threw themselves on one another, more excited and raging than wild beasts in an arena.

In haste to feel the same wonderful sensation of coming in their turn, they tried the most sensational tricks. By dint of leaping around, some of the groups came into collision and fell in a heap on the floor, panting, exhausted with lust and the orgy: a grotesque mélée of naked, freshly excited, half unconscious women heaped up together in the most disgraceful disorder, and this frequently went on until the light of the dawn.

FANNY

What madness!

GAMIANI

They were not satisfied with those things only: they were continually inventing new exercises. Being deprived of the male sex, we were only the more ingenious at inventing extravagant amusements. All the ancient forms of making love and of debauchery, all the obscene stories of ancient and modern times were known to us. We even went beyond them. Elephantis and Aretino had less imagination than we possessed. It would take too long to relate all our tricks, all our subterfuges, our ruses, the marvellous love-philtres that we used to stimulate our wornout nerves, to awaken strange desires and to satisfy them.

It will give you an idea of this if I relate the singular treatment of one our companions in order to excite her passions. First of all she was given a bath of hot blood to renew her vigour. Then she was given a potion to drink, that was prepared with Spanish fly, put to bed, and rubbed all over!

Sometimes she would be hypnotized, and as soon as she was under the influence of the hypnotic sleep, her parts were exposed in an advantageous manner; she was

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threshed until the blood came, or had needles stuck into her. And the sufferer awoke in the midst of her torture. She looked quite wandering in her mind and immediately went into violent convulsions.

It took six persons to hold her down, and nothing appeared to calm her but the licking of a dog. And then if her madness continued and the sexual orgasm did not occur, the unhappy woman became still more furious and shouted in a loud voice that she wanted an ass.

FANNY

What, an ass? Good Gracious!

GAMIANI

Yes, my dear, an ass. We had two that were thoroughly trained and tame. We did not wish to lag behind those ladies of ancient Rome who used them regularly in their saturnalia.

The first time that one was tried on me, I was quite drunk with wine: I threw myself violently on the little seat specially placed, braving all the nuns. The ass was brought into position in front of me at once with the help of an arrangement of leather straps. His terrible weapon, warmed up by the sisters' hands, struck heavily on my side. I seized it in both hands, placed it at my orifice, and after tickling myself with it for a few seconds, I tried to get it in. I stretched myself with my fingers, the nuns had greased me with an expanding salve, and rising to meet him, I gradually managed to get at least five inches inside of me.

I wanted to push again, to get still more in, but my strength was not equal to it, and I fell back. It seemed to me that all my flesh was being ripped open, that I was split in two, dismembered! It was a dull, stifling pain, to which however there came a violent irritation, exciting, tickling, sensual. The animal by dint of continual moving, caused such a vigorous friction that all my bones seemed to be disjointed. The canals and glands of my secretions opened and flooded me, and my burning opening trembled and shook for an instant right to the middle of my back. Oh what an extraordinary spending! What an orgasm! I felt it shoot from me like spurts of flame, and then fall drop by drop to the bottom of my womb. Everything in my inmost being was steaming with lust. I uttered one long cry of nervous ecstasy and was relieved.

In my frantic lustful plunging I had actually got two more inches of the weapon in me, and if it had not been stopped by the animals fleshy sheath, he would have disembowelled me. I had beaten every record, my comrades were beaten hollow.

Exhausted, throbbing with pain in every limb, I thought my voluptuous enjoyment over, when the plaguey thing stiffened and swelled in me still stronger than before, thrust right in me still deeper, almost lifted me bodily on its stiff standing shaft. I gnashed my teeth, clenched my fists, my hands held my poor thighs tightly. Then suddenly a stream of thick pungent hot seed was shot into my womb, so violently that it seemed to flood my heart and overflow my arteries and veins.

My body was then calmed and relaxed in its every part, instead of agonizing pain, I felt only delicious but excruciating sensations, as though this frightful balsamic injection had brought me such a climax of supernatural ecstasy that nerves and brain melted into one heavenly annihilation… Delicious torture… Sweet pain… That loosens the bonds of life and kills with intoxicating joy!…

FANNY

What feelings you make run through me, Gamiani! I cannot keep my feelings and desires back much longer… But really how did you finally escape from this devilish convent?

GAMIANI

Well, I will tell you: after one of our great orgies, we had the idea of turning ourselves into men by wearing dildoes, and to connect our comrades before and behind us in a chain, then to run round in a ring like mad things, each nun having a dildoe up her from behind, and rendering a like service to the nun in front of her with the dildoe she was wearing herself. On this occasion I was the last one in the chain so that there was no dildoe to satisfy me behind. What was my surprise as I felt I was being ravished by an unknown man from behind. How he had got into our party I did not know. At the shriek I uttered, the chain of nuns dissolved, and they all came rushing on him.

Every one of the girls was tired of artificial instruments, and insisted on him giving her the real thing. The too happy man was soon worn out and done for. You should have seen his weapon hanging thin and useless, his expression of utter fatigue, all his manhood nonexistent. I had the greatest difficulty in arousing this human rag when my turn came to taste his elixir. However, I managed it. I lay on the dying man, with my head between his thighs and sucked off his priapus so cleverly that it raised its rosy head once more. Some girl behind me was tongueing my orifice at the same time so that I soon felt I was coming fast. Quickly turning round I impaled myself on the standing sceptre that I had awakened so successfully, and was rewarded by a shower that I returned instantly with my own spending.

This final success finished our poor man off. We tried everything possible to call him back to life, all was useless. Well, would you believe it? As soon as these nuns found out that he was no more good that night, they resolved to kill him outright and bury him in one of their cellars for fear he would split on them outside and cause a scandal concerning the convent.

I begged them not to do this, but in a second they had let down one of the hanging lamps, and attached the cord round his neck, then as they pulled him up, and hanged him, I turned my eyes away from the horrible sight. But to the great surprise of the mad creatures, the hanging produced a not unusual effect. Surprised and delighted at this nervous and muscular demonstration the superior took a ladder, and mounting to the proper height impaled herself on the projection, and thus married a corpse in mid-air to the frenzied applause of her worthy accomplices.

This however, is not quite the end of the story. The rope was too thin or worn to support the weight of two bodies, so it broke, and the dying man and living woman fell to the ground together so heavily that she broke both her legs, and the cord loosening, the dying man came to life sufficiently to try to strangle the superior with a death grip in his expiring convulsions.

The fall of a thunderbolt would not have caused more consternation amongst the nuns than this event. They all scattered, frightened to death that Satan himself was amongst

IX

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them. The superior was lying alone trying to fight off the desperate dying man.

The adventure might have had most serious consequences, so, in order to get away from it all, I escaped that night from this den of crime and debauchery.

I stayed some little time at Florence, the abode of love and distinction. A young English nobleman, Sir Edward X…, poetic and a dreamer like Oswald, fell violently in love with me. I was sick of disgusting amusements. Up to that time my physical senses alone had been awakened, my soul still slumbered. It was gently awakened by the pure and sweet accents of a disinterested and noble love. I began to understand the beauties of a new existence: I felt vague and inexpressible desires that lent poetry and happiness to my life…

Combustible substances do not catch fire of themselves; but a spark is often enough to set them burning! In this manner my heart was inflamed by the passionate declarations of my lover. When I heard the accents of this new language, I felt a sweet trembling go right through me, I listened attentively; my eager eyes lost no expression of his beloved features. The flame that came forth from my lover's eyes penetrated to the depths of my soul and agitated me, making me transcendently happy at the same time. Edward's voice thrilled me with its vibrations. Every gesture of his seemed to me pregnant with sentiment; the passion written on his face and in his eyes found an echo in my own. I was as eager and intense in living for the heart as I had been in living for the senses alone. Edward had one of those lofty, powerful minds that lifts others up to his level. Love became exalted, sublimated in me,—the mere thought of sensual pleasures revolted me. If I had been violated, I felt that I should die of rage. This voluntary barrier torturing the passions of us both, our love only became more ardent in consequence.

Edward was the first to give way. Tired of a Platonic affection of which he ignored the cause, he was no longer possessed of sufficient force of character to control his passions. Finding me one day fast asleep he took me for himself… I awoke in the midst of the most ardent embraces; lost to the world, I replied to his transports of joy with my own; I was three times in the clouds, Edward was three times god-like, but as he fell back from me and lay at my side, I felt only horror of him—for me he was now nothing more than a man of flesh and blood, like the monk who had taken my maidenhead!

I escaped immediately, with fearfully sardonic laughter. The idol was broken; a wind of impurity had extinguished the spark of love; this divine spark that only burns once in one's life; my soul no longer existed. The senses came to the surface, and I returned to my former life…

FANNY

You returned to the love of women?

GAMIANI

No! First of all I wanted to break with men. In order to kill all trace of desire for them or of regret, I ran the round of all the pleasures men can give us. I placed myself in the hands of a celebrated procuress. She found men for me and they were the most expert and muscular Hercules of the city of Florence. It has really happened that I have run as many as thirty two courses in one morning, and still want more. Six athletes were knocked out by me. But one evening I did better than that. I was with three of my most powerful champions. My behaviour and my words put them in such good humour that a devilish idea came to me. To try it out, I begged the strongest one to lie on his back, and while I was enjoying myself to the full on his machine, which was a monster, I was quickly sodomised by the second; my mouth got to work on the third one, and caused him such excitement that he writhed about like a demon, and uttered the most passionate cries. All at once the four of us got the wonderful orgasmal sensation and came down in a perfect shower at the self-same instant. What ardent enjoyment of taste to my palate I What delicious intoxicating overflow in my entrails I Can you conceive these excesses? Just fancy I To suck in one's mouth all a man's love-juice and strength; and impatiently to drink it, to swallow it in waves of foam both warm and bitter, and at the same time to feel a double jet of flame enter your body by its two lower orifices at once. It is a triple pleasure, impossible to adequately describe. My incomparable strong men were polite enough to do it over and over again as long as their strength permitted.

Since that time, fatigued, disgusted with men, I have never been able to understand or experience real pleasure, except when I could hold in my loving arms the slender naked trembling body of an innocent young girl, still virgin, whom one can initiate and teach the arts of love, who is surprised, astonished and then charmed at the unknown sensations… But… what is the matter with you? What are you doing?

FANNY

Oh, I am in a terrible state. I feel horrible, monstruous desires invading my being. Now after hearing all this, I feel I, too, want to know all these sensations, to go through all you have gone through. Whether it brings me pleasure or pain, I want to lie in your dear arms, but not bye and bye, now immediately… But you alone cannot satisfy me perhaps… My poor head is throbbing… Turning round giddily… Oh, I am afraid I shall go mad.

Come, show me what you can do for me. I want to die in your arms from excess of sensuality. I want to spend, to come, at last to spend in an endless shower!

GAMIANI

Calm yourself Fanny! Calm down! Your eyes look so wild, you really frighten me. I will do anything you like, what do you order me to do for you?

FANNY

Well, I want your dear mouth to take me, suck me off… There, there, make me die of pleasure. After that, I want to take you too, to plunge into your entrails and to make you scream!… Oh, when I think of that ass! It torments my mind. I want an enormous member thrust in me, even if it should split me open and make me die like a bitch.

GAMIANI

You are perfectly mad, you will be satisfied. My mouth and tongue are expert, and besides I have brought a nice instrument. Look… it is as good as the action of an ass!

FANNY

Ah… what a monster! Let me try it at once. Oh… ah… it is too big, impossible… It stifles me!

GAMIANI

You don't know how to point it. That's my business. Only don't be afraid, hold tight and be brave.

FANNY

Even if it should cost me my life, I want to take it all in; I am on fire!

GAMIANI

Lie on your back with your limbs loosely relaxed, let your arms hang down and spread your thighs as widely opened as possible, and let your beautiful long hair stream out around your head. Let me take you without fear and without reserve.

FANNY

O yes, I will give myself wholly up to you with delight. Come to my arms, come quickly!

GAMIANI

Patience, child. Listen, in order to feel all, all the pleasure that I can give you, you must forget yourself for an instant, lose yourself, melt into one thought only, the thought of sensual love, of fleshly rapture and mad delight. No matter what way I may attack you, no matter with what rage and force, you must not budge or give an answering movement. Lie quite still and receive my caresses and kisses without returning them. If I bite you, if I tear your flesh, stifle all cries of pain as well as of pleasure until the moment comes when we will both work and struggle together so as to die of pleasure at the same time in each others arms.

FANNY

Oh, yes, I quite understand, Gamiani. Let us begin, I am like a sleeping girl, now I am dreaming. I am waiting for you, come. Am I placed right now? Wait a bit, I think this pose will be still more lascivious.

GAMIANI

Little vicious one! You surpass me. How lovely you are, showing everything like that… How impatient you are I You want it all already, I can see that…

FANNY

Say rather I am on fire with lust. Begin, oh do begin!

GAMIANI

Oh, let us keep up this delightful preparation a little longer. It is so delightful. Relax a little more. Ah, so is very well. You look as though you were dead… delicious abandonment. That's right. Now I am going to seize you, warm you up, bring you gradually back to life. I am going to set your feelings on fire, to raise you to the heights of sensual delight. Then you will fall again as if dead, but dying of pleasure and of excesses. Delightful unknown things! To taste these joys for two seconds only will be a god-like joy!

FANNY

Your speech tortures me with inward fire. Get on with it, Gamiani.

At these words, Gamiani hastily did her hair that was flying round her, up into a knot. She pressed her hand for a moment on her sex, to excite it and then sprang on Fanny's body, which she touched, and then covered all over. Her lips opened the rose-like mouth of Fanny, her tongue then drew out the honey. Fanny exhaled a sigh; Gamiani drank it in and stopped. To see these two women naked, motionless, and locked one in the others arms, one might have imagined that a subtle and mysterious fusion of their souls and bodies had taken place in silence.

Insensibly Gamiani lossened her embrace and rose. Her fingers were then playing capriciously with Fanny's hair which she gazed at with an enchanted smile of languor and voluptuousness. Kisses and soft nibbling bites now flew all over Fanny from head to foot, and Gamiani's tongue tickled her between the toes.

She then rises again erect, and returned to the attack, and falls back on her again, panting, and voracious. Her head and hands caress her all over at once. Fanny is kissed, rubbed, manipulated in her every part, she is pinched, squeezed and bitten. Her courage gives way, she begins to scream; but a delightful fingering brings her back to reason and she stops whimpering and brings forth a long-drawn sigh. Still more ardent, still more furiously lustful, Gamiani throws her head down between Fanny's thighs. Her fingers tear Fanny's roseleaf lips violently asunder. Her long pointed tongue plunges in the depths, and slowly she exhausts all the delights of "minette," the most irritant tickling that any woman can possibly experience. Carefully noting the degree of delirium she is provoking, she stops or redoubles her attentions, according as the excess of pleasure hastens or retards the climax.

Fanny, her nerves in a frightful state, all at once goes into a convulsion.

FANNY

Oh, that's too much, I can't bear it… oh dear!

GAMIANI

Take it, drink it then, said the Countess, handing her a phial of which she had just drunk half the contents. Drink! It is the elixir of life. It will renew your strength.

Fanny, exhausted, powerless to resist, drinks the liqueur that was poured into her half-open mouth.

"Ha, ha!" cries Gamiani in a triumphant voice, "now you are mine!" Her glance had something infernal in it.

Kneeling between Fanny's legs, she strapped on her terrible instrument and brandished it with a menacing air.

When she saw it, Fanny's convulsive movements redoubled in intensity. An internal fire seemed about to consume her and stimulated her to frenzy. Her widespread thighs prepared with an effort to receive the monstruous model of a priapus.

The mad thing! She had hardly accepted the terrible martyrdom when a strange convulsive movement made her start from side to side.

FANNY

Ah, my God, oh, dear me! That liqueur is burning my entrails. Ah how it pains me, how it burns me… Oh, I am going to die! Vile damned witch, you have got me… you have got me now… ah!

Gamiani, heedless of her cries of anguish and of torture, redoubled her attack. She tears through everything, and swims in a bath of blood; but now it is her own turn. Her limbs twist in cramp, the bones, and joints of her fingers crack. I have no longer any doubt that she has swallowed and given a violent poison. Horrified, I rush to their help. I force open the doors in my anger. Alas! Fanny had ceased to breathe. Her arms and legs, clasped in the convulsions of a horrible death are entwined in Gamiani's who was just breathing and gasping in her struggle against death.

I tried to part them.

"Don't you see," a dying voice said, "that the poison is killing me… that my sinews are twisting. Go away… This woman is mine! Ha, ha!"

"Ah, it's terrible!" I cried, beside myself.

GAMIANI

Ah, yes. But I have known all the excesses of sensuality in the torture caused by the poison. If, in the martyrdom of another woman mingled with my own, there was any possible sensuality. It is atrocious! Do you hear! I am dying in the rage of passion, mad, quite mad! Don't you understand. I only wanted to know, if I could not do more in the rage of agony! Alas, alas!

At this long cry, that came from a hollowed breast, the horrible fury of a woman fell dead on the corpse of her victim!

FINIS