The damsels and matrons who were to take part stood off to one side while the burly foreman assigned each to her proper cask, each of which had been numbered with red paint. Dame Margot drew the very first, and her friend and neighbor, Dame Lucille, the second.
I watched with interest as the glowering Hercule led each contestant to her properly assigned cask. Because of his fearsome size and scowling face, his position as overseer undoubtedly gleaned him not only concerted labor in the vineyard, but also, no doubt, enforced surrender to his virile cock whenever his passion demanded respite between the warm suntanned thighs of these handsome matrons. He was of the bullying sort, the kind who might accuse an industrious female worker of not having picked her quota of grapes and threaten her with dismissal or a stoppage of her wages unless, of course, she was willing to give him compensation from her own moist cunny. And when I espied the way in which he would help the contestants to clamber into her cask while cupping a breast or squeezing a buttock or even boldly passing his hand down over her crotch under pretext of assisting her in hoisting up her skirts, I vowed to bite him where he would feel it and so take his lecherous mind off the doubtless orgiastic thoughts teeming in his brutal brain. At last came Laurette, who was to have the fifteenth cask. I noticed, however, that he took her by the hand and led her as a gallant might lead a marchioness through the first measures of the waltz at a festive ball. That was because, of course, fair Laurette was the affianced of the patron, lord of all the village. He tried none of his lecherous tricks with her, I warrant you. All of the contestants showed off their flesh generously to the warm sun. All wore skirts of white cotton that lowered just to the edges of their knees, and their blouses bared the shoulders and were yawningly cut to let the spectators feast their eyes on their favorite fruits of the vine, whether they be round or pearshaped or apple-like or melon and cantaloupe-contoured juicy fruits of love. If one could foretell by the ardent glances alone from the males who watched avidly from their benches, nine months hence those love-fruits would most likely be giving suck in the little village of Languecuisse.
But all that had been said about Laurette Boischamp scarcely did her justice. She had a soft white skin which was entrancing to the sight; and where the sun had justly kissed her bare arms and shoulders, a golden tan was satiny soft and enticing. Smooth and gleaming flesh, in the full bloom of her nineteen summers. Her hair fell in two thick plaits almost to her waist, golden and thick and lustrous. She too wore the short white muslin skirt and low-cut blouse, and like the others, her feet were bare. They were chiselled, dainty little feet, seemingly much too fragile for such vigorous work as needs must be done. One could better conjecture them stepping daintily towards the nuptial couch in preparation for a good fucking rather than crushing the juice-laden grapes.
Once all of the contestants were ensconced inside their casks, Hercule took hold of the cowbell and shook it as a signal. Whereupon all the damsels and matrons promptly hoisted their skirts to their waists and pinned them up out of harm's way. A roar of admiration went up from the male spectators on the benches at the rapturous vision thus granted them. For at least six of the contestants wore no undergarments, so that the furry thatch between their supple, flexing thighs boldly appeared. Laurette, however, as befitted a maiden of her tender years, wore dainty pink cotton drawers. Yet they fitted her so snugly as to be virtually a second skin, molding out the beautifully plump, closely set of cheeks of her behind, and evincing an exquisitely tasty, plump mount of Venus in front. The patron himself deigned to stare longingly at Laurette, who promptly flushed and hid her charming heart-shaped face in the crook of one beautiful bare arm. Her eyes were wide, well spaced apart, of a sky blue hue into which a man could lose himself by staring. She had the most exquisite little nose, with just a hint of an upturned tilt to it. Add to this a pair of full, ripe red lips meant for kissing or for engaging the head of a vigorous prick, and I trow that no lusty male in all the world could ask for more beauteous or winsome a sweetheart. Indeed, I, a humble Flea, could understand the desire that a man could feel for such a wench. I could understand also that a scrawny and senile person like the patron did not deserve to bring her to his bed, no matter how wealthy he was.
Now that everything was in readiness, I could see also that the charming contestants stood in the cask up to about their lower thighs, since grapes filled the casks and rendered the height at which they were presented to the spectators. There was an hourglass at the edge of the platform, which Monsieur Villiers now took up in his bony hand, and Hercule promptly announced that the competition would last precisely for one hour. At the end of that time, she whose vat below her was most filled with the liquid squeezing which her naked feet had trodden out would be declared triumphant and would bear off the prize.
Now, of course, as the contest would proceed, and the level of the grapes would be lowered, the luscious bodies of the females competing for this supposed honor would be more and more revealed. Perhaps this is why from the outset the bolder ones decided to present themselves without undergarments for the occasion. I caught sight of many a man winking and making gestures to this or that female in her cask, evidently with the idea of arranging some sort of copulatory assignation with her when the evening shadows fell.
The hourglass was reversed, Hercule rang the bell thunderously again, and amid the cries and exhortations of the spectators, the contest began. Now I observed that there was some truth to the rumor I had heard that the elderly vintner had contrived to give Laurette a more facile task by putting fewer grapes into her cask, since at the very outset I could see her body exposed only to about her hips, whereas in all the other casks the loins—whether bare or bedrawered—were plainly visible. It was an amusing spectacle, nonetheless. Margot and Lucille faced each other, their eyes sparkling, their fine bosoms heaving passionately, as they put their hands on their hips and began to tread, their naked legs splashing up and down like pistons, trampling the soft pulp beneath, the liquid began to run down into the vats below. They started at a merry clip, so that their bosoms jiggled lasciviously, as did their bottoms and their fine thighs. Such a sight naturally encouraged the eager male spectators to call out encouragement, many of which, I fear, were too salacious to permit inscription here. The consensus of these, however, was that every male who watched would have given a month's pay gladly to be mounted between the thighs of either Lucille or Margot, and promised each of them in turn so vigorous a fucking as to leave them bedridden for a week at least and of no use to their natural husbands.
Jacques and Guillaume, sitting side by side on a bench which faced that side of the platform where their wives toiled, exchanged quips and ribald advice to their lovely spouses, so I concluded that even without my aid or without the victory of either of those handsome trollops, it would not be long before the two husbands would be sampling the forbidden delights of the other's wife, and without the least acrimony.