His little crest pierced through my maidenhead with a cutting pain which I felt no more than a bulling heifer would have felt the stroke of a switch. The pain was drowned in overwhelming pleasure. The thrill swept over every fibre in my frame, not only at the first thrust, but three times successively, and at each plunge I gave a sigh of rapture. Then my tense muscles relaxed and I received with pleasure at least a dozen more thrusts.
Something was still wanting. It was the gush of sperm that Tessidor at last poured into my heated sheath like balm. He sank heavily upon me for a few minutes with his face buried in my neck. I was enjoying a voluptuous languor, when I felt his little shrunken crest floating out of my sheath with the mingled blood and sperm.
Remorse had already seized him. He raised himself on his elbow and gazed pitifully into my face. I was past blushing so I covered my face with my hands. 'I have ruined you,' he said, 'wretch that I am, heaven forgive me!' He got up from the bed without even giving me another kiss and knelt before his crucifix. 'Will you join me in asking heaven for mercy on my sin?' he beseeched.
I made some excuse and fled from the room.
The next morning I heard that he had gone to join a convent in the mountains. By this time I had come to the conclusion that I had let him off too quickly. I had not had enough. Perhaps a warm bath would help to soothe me.
There was a large bath half the size of a room and deep enough when full to cover my breasts; there was a door to it from my room and one from my mother's; she was busy at this time in the morning with her servants. It was the old chief's time to take a bath and he always had the warm water; I determined to share it with him. I had heretofore doubted whether the old chief would want to touch his wife's daughter, but my success with the young priest gave me courage.
I took off all my clothes in my room and peeped through the door. He was floating on his back playing with his shaft, which dangled limber in the water. I had most always seen it stiff, and I promised myself the pleasure of getting it in that position, which I preferred. Pretty soon he came to the side towards me, where he could not be seen by me; now was the time for me to come in as if I had not known he was there.
I opened my door suddenly and ran and jumped into the water. I swam across the bath, turned around and became the picture of astonishment at seeing him. I first covered my face with my hands, then covered by bosom with one hand and my loins with the other. I did not scream; that might bring my mother.
Then I turned my back on him. The side of the bath where I stood was perpendicular. He stood by the sloping side where we got out — of course I had to stay.
'It's all right, Anna,' he said, 'we will have a nice bath together.'
I started to dodge past him, but of course he caught me. 'I shall scream,' said I, but of course I did not scream. I was fast in his arms, his stiffening shaft crushing against my buttocks and each of his hands squeezing one of my bosoms. My apprehensions of reluctance on his part were all departed, so I kept up more show of resistance. I struggled to get away, but only struggled harder to get around in front of him. This brought my back to the sloping side of the bathtub, against which he pressed me.
Half standing and half lying my head was still above water. The wantonness of the situation and the warmth of the water made the bath seem like a voluptuous sea. Of course I had put both arms around him to keep from sinking; his hands were thus both at liberty. He needed them both to work his half-stiffened shaft into me. Leuline and my mother only the night before had taken the starch out of it; nothing but the excitement of such a kind of rape would have stiffened it at all.
Half limber as it was, it completely filled me, paining me a little at first, but gradually feeling better and better, pervading all through me with the most lascivious sensation. The warm water churned in and out of my sheath at every thrust with a feeling like gushing sperm. All the water in the bath seemed to be of the male gender, and all of it embracing me and administering to my lust.
For fully five minutes I abandoned myself to the delicious dissolving feeling, not as thrilling as the young priest had caused the night before, but more prolonged. Even after it had subsided and died away, the plunges of the old chief were still pleasant. Finally his shaft became for a moment rigid deep within me, he gave a throb or two which deprived him of his strength and he no longer supported me.
I scrambled from his arms up the side of the bath and, regaining my own room, shut the door and sank exhausted on the bed. We never pursued the intrigue, as the terror of my mother was too much before our eyes. Besides I was a few days after engaged in an amour with Rudolf, the handsome young captain of the guard, while the old chief had been supplied with a fresh bedfellow by my mother. This time, in the place of Leuline, it was a young maid, who timidly blushed — for I still amused myself occasionally peeping through the alcove.
A short time afterward the old chief was slain in battle and the sagacity of my mother was rewarded, for I succeeded peaceably to the principality. But my mother swayed the real power. I was willing she should do so, provided she did not interfere with my amours. It was by her advice that I did not marry. 'A virgin chieftain will be popular with the people, and you can control men,' she would say, 'far better unmarried.'
In fact, Rudolf, captain of the guard, was my abject slave, and so were Cassim and Selim, two of the bravest young chiefs in the army. I admitted them all to my bed in turn, Rudolf the most frequently, for he was powerfully built and had genitals correspondingly large. When I wished to be tickled deeply, the tall and slender Selim received the secret summons to my chamber. Cassim was short and stout — it was agreeable sometimes to be stretched without being deeply penetrated. Each of these suspected that the others also enjoyed my favour, but they were not certain of it.
One evening I invited them all to my secret apartments. The sideboard had been replenished, the servants had been dismissed for the evening and the doors locked. I was dressed in a purple velvet bodice with a petticoat of red silk. I had on my richest lace and jewellery and the crown of the principality was on my brow. The handsome young officers glittered in their splendid uniforms; suspense and curiosity were mingled in their countenances.
I waited until several toasts had been drunk in my honour while my wanton eyes devoured the fine proportions of the young men, then I thus addressed them: 'Should not a Circassian princess have as many privileges as a Turkish pasha?'
'Certainly,' they all replied.
'Should she not be entitled to a harem as well as he?'
They hesitated but answered, 'Yes.'
'You then, shall be my harem,' said I, rising. 'You, Cassim, shall be lord of the lips.'
The polite young officer set the example of devotion by coming to my side and kissing the lips that I had committed to his charge.
'You, Selim, are the lord of the bosom.'
He came up on the other side of me and kissed the bosom which peeped out above the lace front of my bodice.
'You, Rudolf, shall be the lord of the thighs.'
He knelt before me, and, raising my skirts, planted a kiss on the hairy mouth they concealed. Then I felt his tongue penetrate the lips beneath; it caused a flush of desire to mantle through my frame.
'Let us divest ourselves of this clothing which makes mortals of us and become like the ancient gods,' I said.
My example, together with the champagne, now broke down all reserve. We stripped entirely naked and amused ourselves by imitating the attitudes usually given by arc to the most celebrated heathen divinities. It was not enough for me to compare the forms of the young men by observation. I freely caressed and handled their genitals with my hands until they lost all restraint and gathered so closely about me that I was squeezed in their joint embrace.