Desire Page 6

  The Grecian Lady’s Story

  I entered the bridal bed a virgin. When the bridesmaids left me I trembled with apprehension and covered up my head in the bed clothing; it was because I had heard so many stories of the trials and hardships of a virgin on her wedding night and not because I had any antipathy for my husband; on the contrary, I liked him. His courtship had been short, for he was a busy man in the diplomatic service of the Greek government. He was no longer young, but he was good-looking and manly, and I was proud that he had selected me from the other Athenian girls. He came to the side of my bed, and turning down the clothes from my head he saw how I was agitated. My heart beat still more violently when he entered. He simply kissed my hand and then went to the other side of the room to undress; this conduct somewhat reassured me. When he got into bed and took me in his arms my back was turned toward him. He took no liberties with any part of my person, but began to converse with me about the incidents of the wedding. I was soon so calm that I suffered him to turn me with my face toward him and kiss me first on the forehead and then on the lips. After a while he begged me to return his kisses, saying that if I did not it would prove that I disliked him. Thus encouraged, I returned his kisses.

  When I had been so long in his arms that I began to feel at home, he turned me upon my back, unfastened the bosom of my chemise, and kissed and fondled my breasts. This set my heart to beating wildly again, but I kept exchanging kisses till he suddenly lifted the skirt of my chemise and lay between my thighs. Then I covered my face with my hands for shame, but he was so kind and gentle I soon got accustomed to the situation. I suffered him to remove my hands and fasten his mouth to mine in a passionate kiss; as he did so I felt something pushing between my thighs. It entered amid the curls and touched the naked lips beneath.

  I felt my face grow hot with shame and I lay perfectly passive. He must have been in bed with me two hours before he ventured so far. He had his reward, for a soft desire began to grow in my brain; the blood centred in my loins and I longed for the connection, which was so imminent. I returned him a kiss as passionate as he gave; it was the signal for which he had been waiting. I felt a pressure on the virgin membrane, not hard enough however to be painful. The pressure slackened and then pushed again and again. By this time I was wanton with desire, and not only returned the passionate kisses, but wound my arms around him. Then came that fatal thrust, tearing away the obstruction and reaching to the very depths of my loins. I gave a cry of mingled bliss and agony, which I could not help repeating at each of three deep thrusts that followed. Then all was still and an effusion like balm filled my sheath in place of the organ that had so disturbed it. A delightful languor stole over my frame and I went to sleep in my husband’s arms.

  In less than six months circumstances compelled me to deceive him. After we had been married a while our position required us to go a great deal in company. Card playing was very fashionable and the stakes got very high. One night the luck was terribly against me. I proposed for the party to double. My husband had gone on a journey a few days before and had left a large sum of money in my charge; it was nearly all his fortune. A portion of this money I now staked, thinking that the luck could not possibly go against me again. But it did.

  I was rendered desperate; again I proposed to double, it would take all I had left if I lost. The ladies who were playing withdrew; the gentlemen were too polite to do so. The cards were against me; I felt myself grow deadly pale. The French ambassador, Count Henri, who was sitting beside me, was disposed to conceal my terrible embarrassment; he was very stalwart. His manners were very engaging; he kept up a stream of small talk till the others had dispersed to other parts of the room; then he offered to bring me on the morrow the amount I had lost. I turned as crimson as I had before been pale; I knew too well the price of such assistance. I made him no reply. My eyes dropped to the floor and I begged him to leave me, which he politely did.

  All the next day I was nearly distracted. I hoped Count Henri would not come, my cheeks would burn as on the evening before, and the blood all rushed back to my heart. At three o’clock he came, the valet showed him to the parlour, closed the door and retired. Count Henri must have known he was expected, for I was elegantly dressed in blue silk and my shoulders were set off with heavy lace; I was so agitated I could not rise from the sofa to greet him.

  “May I have the happiness of being your confidant?” he asked, as he seated himself beside me, holding in one hand a well-filled purse and dropping the other about my waist. I could not reject the purse; if I kept it I could not ask him to remove his arm; I was giddy with contending emotions. “For God’s sake spare me!” I murmured. My head drooped and he pressed it to his heart; I fainted away. When I became conscious I was lying on my back upon the sofa, in the arms of the count, the lace at my bosom was parted, my heavy skirts all turned up from my naked thighs, and he was in the very ecstasy of filling my sheath with sperm. It was this exquisite sensation which restored me to consciousness, but I was too late to join in the ecstasy. His shaft became limper and small, and I was left hopelessly in the lurch. Then I beseeched him to go as it was no time or place for this. “Will you receive me in your bedroom tonight?” asked he, kissing my bare bosoms. He had so excited my passions that I no longer hesitated. “The front door will be unfastened all night,” I replied, “and my room is directly over this one.” Then he allowed me to rise; I adjusted my disordered dress as quickly as possible, but it was not quick enough; the valet opened the door to bring the card of a visitor, he saw enough to put me in his power. When the count had gone I found the purse in my bosom; it contained more than I had lost, but my thoughts were not of money; my lips had tasted the forbidden fruit. I was no longer the same woman, my excitement had culminated in lascivious desire, I could hardly wait for night to come.

  When finally the house was still I unfastened the front door, retired to my room, undressed and was standing in my chemise, with my nightgown in my hand ready to put on, when the door of my room opened and Alex, the valet, stood before me with a finger on his lips. He was a fine-looking youth of seventeen. A Hungarian of a reduced family, who acted half in the capacity of secretary and half in that of valet for my husband. I could not help giving a faint scream, while I concealed my person as much as possible with the nightgown.

  “My lady,” said he, “I know all. But I shall be discreet; I only ask you to give me the sweetest proof of your confidence.” There was no help for it; with a murmur for shame I sprang into bed and hid under the bed clothes; he quickly undressed and followed; my object was to dismiss him before the Count came. I therefore suffered him to make rapid progress. He took me in his arms and kissed my lips and bosoms, and as he raised my chemise our naked thighs met. He was more agitated than myself; I had been anticipating a paramour all afternoon, while he could not have known what reception would be accorded him; he could hardly guide his shaft to the lips that welcomed it; as for myself, I began where I had left off with the Count. My sheath with wanton greediness devoured every inch that entered it, and at the very first thrust I melted with an adulterous rapture never felt in my husband’s embrace.

  Just at that moment I heard the front door softly open and shut. I pushed Alex away with a force that drew his stiff shaft completely out of me.

  “Gather up your clothes quickly and get into the closet,” I said. Madly eager as he must have been to finish, he hurried with his clothes into the closet, the door of which just shut as the Count entered.

  The Count came up and kissed me. I pretended to be asleep; he undressed hastily, got into bed and took me in his arms. But I delayed his progress as much as possible; I made him tell me everything that had been said about my losses at cards; I used every artifice to keep him at bay until his efforts should arouse my passions; then he mounted me; his stalwart shaft distended and penetrated me so much deeper than that of young Alex that it was more exquisite than before. Again the wild, adulterous thrill penetrated every part of my body. I fair
ly groaned with ecstasy. At that moment the front door loudly opened. It must be my husband unexpectedly returning. “Good heavens, Count!” I cried, “under the bed with you.” He pulled his great stiff shaft out of me with a curse of disappointment that he could not finish, and scrambled under the bed, dragging his clothes with him. My husband came in all beaming with delight that he had been able to return so soon.

  I received him with much demonstration. “How it flushes your cheeks to see me,” he said. When he undressed and came to bed I returned his caresses with so much ardour that he soon entered where Alex and the Count had so hastily withdrawn. It was pleasant, but I feigned much more rapture than I felt. To console the Count I dropped one of my hands down alongside of the bed and he was so polite as to kiss it; as my husband’s face was buried in my neck, and he was making rapid thrusts, I kissed my other hand to Alex, who was peering out of the closet. Then I gave motion to my loins, which sent my husband spending, and repeated it till I had extracted from him the most copious gushes; it was too soon for me to melt with another thrill; my object was to fix him for a sound sleep, but the balmy sperm was so grateful to my sheath after the two fierce preceding encounters that I felt rewarded for my troubles. He soon fell asleep. I then motioned for the Count to go. With his clothes in one hand and his stiff shaft in the other he glided out. Soon after I heard the front door shut, and the disconsolate Alex came forth, his clothes under his arm and both hands holding his rigid staff; he, too, disappeared.

  *

  Here Helene finished. During her story I lay on my back, resting on Inez’s bosom. Helene sat astride of my loins with her face toward me, which gave me a fair view of her most secret beauties. She had carelessly let the scarf fall over our laps, and under its protecting cover her little tapering fingers began to play with my limper shaft. As the story proceeded, it began to stiffen, and as she was describing the bedchamber scene she contrived to slip it into the crevice so directly above it. It rose until it was almost rigid, vivified as it was by the close retreat in which it was hidden. She kept undulating her loins as the story went on until, just as she finished, I was nearly ready; at the same moment I felt my shaft moistened by the libation of the Greek girl, and she fell fainting into the arms of a lady close by. My shaft drew out of her with a sucking noise that set all to laughing. She hurriedly gave the scarf to the lady in whose arms she lay and in whose bosom she had her face. “It is with you, Zuleika,” they all cried in chorus. Zuleika looked very much embarrassed.

  About eighteen years of age, she was formed very much like Inez, whom she equalled in height, but she was more muscular, and her skin was of deep bronze. Her large, white lustrous eyes were dark as night; as was her curly hair, which was set off by a snowy turban, on which gleamed a crescent of burnished silver. The colour deepened in her dusky cheeks as she drew close to me and timidly began her story.

  From DRACULA

  Bram Stoker

  Bram Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland. In 1879, he published his first literary work, The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, a handbook in legal administration. Turning to fiction later in life, Stoker published his masterpiece, Dracula, in 1897. Deemed a classic horror novel not long after its release, Dracula has continued to garner acclaim for more than a century, inspiring the creation of hundreds of film, theatrical and literary adaptations. In addition to Dracula, Stoker published more than a dozen novels before his death.

  Later: the Morning of 16 May. – God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for: that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say: –

  My tablets! quick, my tablets!

  ’Tis meet that I put it down, etc.,

  for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.

  The Count’s mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

  When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning came into my mind, but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where of old ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that, as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep.

  I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real – so real that now, sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.

  I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great, wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed – such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses14 when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said: –

  “Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.” The other added: –

  “He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.

  I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lo
wer and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer – nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstacy and waited – waited with beating heart.

  But at that instant another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant’s power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper, seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room as he said: –

  “How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.” The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him: –