Ladies and gentlemen, the tale I am about to tell you is a sordid one of lust and deceit. None of the principal characters is any better than he or she should be, and the plot of the story is reprehensible. Yet in the end, pride is brought low and a thoroughly nasty bitch learns a lesson through shame, humiliation, and, paradoxically, pleasure.
The ancient Ming city of Suchow, near the mouth of the Yangtze River is called the Venice of China for its canals, its elegance, and above all for its love of pleasure. It is the center of the silk industry, and the capital of pleasure. The music is gentle and soothing, unlike the whanging and banging of Peking opera, and the food is sweet and salty, not the fire of Szechuan.
Suchow has always been known as the home of the most beautiful women in the Celestial Kingdom; and the members of the Midnight Scholar's little harem -- Aunt Chen and her nieces Cassia, Pearl, and Jade -- prove the rule.
But wait! I hear you ask. Why would beautiful, elegant young women spoil any chance of a good marriage by indulging in such festivities? Readers, to ask the question is to know the answer. A pretty face can justify any crime. Hardly a murderess or a bandit queen comes before the law court without being inundated with gifts, love letters, marriage proposals. Women as fetching as our subjects can always find husbands – if only they can avoid too scrupulous an inspection of their privates before marriage.
Cassia, the youngest of the nieces at eighteen, is a merry little monkey, always chattering and laughing. With her slender hips and tiny breasts, she could easily be mistaken for a young boy, though she is all woman. Cassia, alone of the three cousins, is a virgin, though how long she remains one is anyone's guess. Not long, I'll wager!
Pearl, twenty-one, tall and slender like her aunt, is dreamy and thoughtful. Often lost in her thoughts, she has often set fire to the kitchen through lack of attention. She spends hours looking out the window, lost in her own thoughts. One thing, however, is guaranteed to wake her from her reveries: sex.
Jade, twenty five years old, with rounded breasts and hips, alas, tends to be jealous and even spiteful. Other women have liveries and palaces, but she lives with her aunt. And why, she often wonders aloud, has her aunt not found her a rich husband yet? What is she waiting for?
Aunt Chen herself is forty years old, tall and elegant. She always impresses, recites poetry in a low, melodious voice, is skilled at calligraphy and plays the lute to perfection. Alas, Chen is haughty and condescending to her wards. She can hardly play a song or copy a poem without extolling her own ability and disparaging that of her nieces. Nevertheless, she keeps a good table and she has inherited a large house in which her nieces are more than happy. More than happy, indeed, for with their mutual fingerings, and kissing, together with the Midnight Scholar's attentions, not one of the women experiences fewer than three orgasms a day, and on some days, many more.
To begin this afternoon's session Aunt Chen has provided a deck of cards. Each player is to draw a card depicting one of the fifty-two positions of love.
One card shows a naked beauty on her back with lwhite egs hanging off the bed, while a man kneels on cushions between her legs. "Horse position," reads the caption beneath the picture. "The lovers do not thrust, but gently sway."
Another card shows a man sitting in lotus while a woman, also in lotus, sits on his lap. "Lotus position," read the ideograms. "The lovers rock back and forth."
A third shows a woman lying on her back on a table, while man holds her legs apart and aloft as he stands between them. "Double Crane," reads the text. "The man thrusts deeply. Care must be taken in this position that the man does not thrust too far, and it is not suitable for virgins, nor for women only recently accustomed to love."
NowJade draws a card not to her liking. It shows a woman bent over a table as her lover apparently enters the wrong hole.
"Ugh! What are they doing?"
"How disgusting!"
"If you ask me, it would be impossible."
"This card is called "I Want to Get Married, says Aunt Chen in a superior tone as she arches her eyebrows. " I'm surprised you don't know such an appealing story." Cassia and Jade look at each other and roll their eyes. "Once upon a time, a boy and a girl fell in love. Alas, the girl's social station was far above the boy's. Does a princess consort with a groom? Marriage between the two was impossible. Nevertheless, they yearned and burned for one another. When the boy put his hand on the girl's breast, she caught it by the wrist.
"I want to get married," said the maiden. "You know perfectly well that my fiance's female relatives will inspect my privates before the wedding. If they see that I am not a virgin, the match will be cancelled, and I might as well hang myself."
"By way of answer, her lover produced his member, which was long and hard.
"I want to get married," the girl repeated. "Nothing can change that. But perhaps you could visit me through the back door. Would that satisfy you?"
"It would and it did, and in this way the lovers reached their end without the loss of the young woman's virtue. Now," says Aunt Chen, "We have wasted enough time. Let us get to work. Off with all these clothes."
So the women, and their fortunate swain, strip away their clothes. The Midnight Scholar is pleased to see that all his partners have removed every vestige of pubic hair, leaving their skin perfectly bare and as smooth as ivory. The little lips can feel the touch of an eyelash, or the slightest whisper of breath.
Now the ladies use the bed as a card table, so that Aunt Chen deals each woman, including herself, an illustrated tile.
Aunt Chen insists on going first, of course, but when she turns her card, she recoils. The gods, it seems, have intervened, and Aunt Chen has drawn "I Want to Get Married."
"No! Never!" she protests. "I want a new card."
"Nonsense!" cry the others. "If any of us had got that card, you would have made us keep it.
It was the Midnight Scholar who suggests a compromise.
"It's only a game, after all. Let her take the position shown, and then we can let her go and the game can continue."
So, reluctantly, Aunt Chen bends over the edge of the bed. She lays her head on the mattress, stretches out her arms, and raises her lovely rear end.
In a trice, Pearl and Jade seize her by the arms. Reader, being held by two people is like being held by six; there is simply no way for the woman to escape, though she twists from side to side and dances from one bare foot to the other. Eventually, tired out, she ceases to struggle but not to complain.
"This game has gone on long enough," she says. "Let me go, now."
"I don't know," says the man. "Let us ask The Authority."