The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

by Li Yu

  BEAUTIFUL GIFTS

  WOMEN FROM

  As he opened the trunk, tipped out its romantic contents, and picked them over, the first fan he turned up was hers. Its calligraphy, he noted on opening it, was not of the highest artistry but did possess a certain charm. Its three four-line poems were by the Tang genius Academician Li, to the tune "Peaceful Melody." They were written when Emperor Xuanzong was admiring the tree peonies with Lady Guifei and called Li into the palace to celebrate the occasion.

  Vesperus would not have dreamed of reciting the poems without the correct preparation. He changed into his best clothes and cap, then lit an incense burner filled with the finest incense. Finally he cleared his throat and, like a singer of Kun opera rendering a long, slow tune, enunciated the poems syllable by syllable so that she could hear them clearly.

  Poem One

  Like clouds her garments are, like a flower her face,

  As zephyrs brush the rail-top's shimmering dew.

  Should you fail to find her on the Mount of Jades,

  You may meet her on Jasper Terrace beneath the moon.

  Poem Two

  A sprig of crimson radiance, scent-bedewed,

  Spells clouds and rain and an emperor's broken heart.

  In the palaces of Han who is there to compare?

  One pities even The Swallow, fresh adorned.

  Poem Three

  They rejoice, the noble flower and peerless beauty,

  Watched by the king of kings with indulgent smile.

  Gone is the pain that the vernal zephyrs bring,

  As in Aloeswood she leans upon the rail. [64]

  He recited the poems again. When there was still no response after ten recitations, he read out the date and the calligrapher's name as well, like the dialogue in the middle of an aria. He thought he might just as well let her hear properly, so he repeated those items several times, too, whereupon from the top of the wall there suddenly came a barely audible sound that was something between a cough and a sigh. Vesperus knew that she had climbed up there, so he rounded on the fan and denounced it: "Because of this fan, someone was almost driven to his death. The fan is here, but where is she? If she can be found, I should give it back to her. What's the point of keeping it?"

  A reply came from the top of the wall: "The fan's owner is over here. Please throw it up to me. There's no need to be so bitter about it."

  Looking up, Vesperus pretended to be astonished: "So the peerless beauty is close at hand after all! There was no need for me to be lovesick all this time! Now I shan't die!" So saying, he bounded up the ladder, took her in his arms, and kissed her so that their tongues copulated together.

  "Where have you been all this time, that I never saw you again?" asked Cloud. "And why are you in this place all of a sudden and reciting the poems on my fan?"

  "I live here. I'm your next-door neighbor. Didn't you know?"

  "There are other people living there. I've never noticed you before."

  "I've only just moved in."

  "Where were you living before? And why did you move here?"

  Hoping to win her favor, Vesperus took the opportunity for a little deception. "I moved here on your account. Surely you realize that? When I saw you in Zhang the Immortal's Temple, I fell in love, and when you gave me a parting look and left your fan for me, I couldn't get you out of my mind. I tried everything I could think of to move here so that we could be together."

  "What a romantic you are!" said Cloud, breaking into a broad smile and tapping him playfully on the shoulder. "To think, I almost did you an injustice! But whom do you have living with you?"

  "Just a concubine a friend gave me. She's not been with me long. The rest of my family I left at home."

  "But why didn't you come by before you moved here? You've made me positively sick, longing for you all this time!"

  "At first I couldn't find out where you lived, so there was no way I could see you. As soon as I heard, I moved here to be with you."

  "When did you move here, then?"

  "Less than six months ago. Four or five months at most." Cloud's smile froze on her face. "Since you've been here all this time," she asked after a pause, "why didn't you pay any attention to me before? Why did those cold ashes of yours take so long to give off a spark?"

  Vesperus knew from her tone that he had made a mistake and, flushing with embarrassment, he tried to talk his way out of trouble. "All this time I assumed your husband was at home and, since the last thing I wanted was to get you into trouble by doing something rash, I put you out of my mind and simply endured these past few months. Only just now, when I heard your husband was away teaching and there was no one else at home, did I dare make my presence known. It was caution on my part, nothing more. You surely don't think that I could forget you or that I would deliberately ignore you?"

  Cloud said nothing, but retained her sardonic smile. "Well, do you still have my fan?" she asked after some thought.

  "I keep it close beside me at all times. It's never away from me for an instant. I wouldn't dare lose it."

  "May I see it in that case?"

  Vesperus assumed that once she saw the fan her suspicions would be dispelled, her mood would change, and she would be ready to consider sex. He climbed down the ladder, wrapped the fan in a cloth, and handed it to her. To his astonishment she tore the fan into shreds and threw them into her room. Then she flung the cloth back at him.

  "What a false-hearted wretch you are! I'm only glad I never got involved with you! From now on it's over between us!"

  Fuming, she started down the ladder, pulling herself away from Vesperus's clutches and ignoring his entreaties. Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she burst inexplicably into tears.

  Vesperus wanted to climb down and ask what the matter was, but he was afraid of being seen, so he watched her from the top of the wall as she wept. In the midst of his predicament he heard a sudden sound from among the banana palms outside the study door, as if someone was there. Afraid it might be Fragrance, he quickly replaced the boards and climbed down.

  He was puzzled. What could be the matter with her? he asked himself. I haven't said or done anything to upset her, so why on earth should she lose her temper like this? Judging from her reaction, she was blaming me for taking so long to contact her, which delayed our lovemaking by six months. But as the saying goes, "In the Qingming festival, it's never too late for the cold food." [65] All that matters, surely, is that I love her. Let me make up with interest all we've missed in the last six months. Why get so upset? I suspect that her reaction wasn't solely due to this, but that there's some other reason for it. What she said just now, harsh as it was, may not have represented her true feelings. It may have been just a trick to make me beg for forgiveness. I can't very well go there in the daytime, but this evening I shall have to get through the wall and find out. Whatever the rights and wrongs, I'll apologize and settle matters between us.

  That day passed as slowly as a year. Vesperus waited impatiently until evening, then sent Fragrance off to bed and returned to his study. First he fastened the door and windows securely and took off his scholar's cap and outer garments. Then, putting out the lamp, he climbed up the ladder and removed the boards that he had loosened before, for all the world as if he were opening up a gateway.

  He was still worried. So far so good, he thought. But if there's nothing to climb down on, I can hardly jump off a twenty-foot wall! She sounded so harsh before, I'm sure she'll never come and help me if I call out. I won't be able to say a word.

  As it happened, Cloud's heart proved softer than her words. Before going to bed she had left him a loophole, not taken the ultimate step in rejection. When he climbed up and stretched out his hand, Vesperus found that the ladder she had used during the day was still there waiting for him.

  Overjoyed, he stepped on to it and climbed silently down, as if crossing a wooden bridge. He had gone up with an even tread and he came down with an equally even tread, untroubled by the le
ast difficulty or danger.

  Silently he felt his way to the bed, where she lay motionless. He assumed she was asleep and intended to ease his way into her bedclothes. He would take the opportunity to insert his penis into her vagina and gently awaken her, after which they would talk. That would allow him to dispense with the usual overtures. His mind made up, he stretched out a hand to lift aside the bedclothes.

  Little did he realize that Cloud was not asleep, but that she had heard him very clearly as he approached. In the hope of saving herself from his overtures, she had faced the wall, pretending to be unaware of his presence. But when she felt him trying to open the bedclothes, she decided that she could hardly let him "burst unannounced into the general's tent." Unable to escape, she had to turn over and pretend to have been startled from a dream. "Who's there?" she cried out. "Creeping into people's beds in the dark!"

  Vesperus whispered in her ear, "I'm the one you spoke to today. I know it was wrong of me to neglect you all this time, and I've come especially to beg your forgiveness." As he spoke, he tried to wriggle inside the bedclothes, but Cloud, furious, hugged them tightly around her and refused to let him in.

  "What a heartless wretch you are! Who asked you to come here begging forgiveness? Out, and be quick about it!"

  "I've worn myself to a frazzle trying to think how to get over here and be with you! You can't call that heartless!"

  "Who do you think your fine words are going to deceive? Oh, such good judges of quality your eyes are! You don't have some dazzling beauty to enjoy yourself with, so you turn to an ugly creature like me. You'd betray your own sweetheart to be here with me."

  "The girl I have at home was given to me by a friend and I had no choice but to accept her. How can you be jealous of her?"

  "It is perfectly proper to enjoy yourself with your own wife. How could I be jealous of her? But you oughtn't to involve yourself with someone like me and then banish me to the ends of the earth. If you lived a long way off and we had no chance to meet, that would be one thing. But there you were on the other side of the wall, and not a word did you utter, as if we were total strangers! A person as heartless as that I'd just as soon leave to others."

  "Mistress, where do you get all of this? Apart from my wife and concubine, I've never been intimate with any other woman. This is my very first attempt at an affair. Why are you slandering me for no reason?"

  "Answer me this," said Cloud. "On such-and-such a date, three women went into Zhang the Immortal's Temple to pray. Were you, or were you not, the one who admired their beauty so much that he knelt down outside the gate and kowtowed like a madman?"

  "It's true. There were three women in the temple that day burning incense. I was there, too, to pray for a son, and when I saw some women already there, I thought it best not to go in, to avoid mixed company, so I knelt down and kowtowed outside the gate. But it was Zhang the Immortal I was worshipping, not the women!"

  Cloud burst into laughter. "What! You've just given yourself away. If you'd denied everything, you might have gotten away with it. But since it was you, you've no case left. Do you mean to tell me that a voyeur who used to hide behind the Immortal's image would be too afraid of scandal to rush in and flirt with any woman he fancied, but would kneel down and kowtow outside the gate? That lie wouldn't deceive a two-year-old, and yet you have the nerve to try it on me!"

  Vesperus realized she knew everything and that it was no use trying to cover up. He had no choice but to tell the truth, both to confess his misdeeds and also to coax the other women's whereabouts out of her.

  "To tell you the truth, Mistress," he said with a smile, "I was kowtowing partly to the Immortal and partly to those women, to get them to take pity on me. But I wonder how you came to know what was going on at the temple while you were sitting at home? Who told you about it?"

  "Oh, I have supernatural powers, I don't need anyone to tell me."

  "Mistress, since you know what happened, you must also know where the women live and what their names and their husbands' names are. I beg you to tell me."

  "You've been with them six months and you still have to ask me that?"

  "Once more, I don't know what you're talking about! I've never seen them again since that first time. How can you say I've been with them six months? Oh, how can I protest this injustice?"

  "You're still trying to bluff your way out of it! If you weren't with them, why didn't you come and see me these last six months? Obviously it was all their idea, to prevent you from having anything to do with me. You think I don't know that?"

  "What a monstrous injustice! Not a shred of evidence, and yet you're full of suspicion!"

  "If it's really not true, swear a solemn oath."

  Vesperus faced the heavens and swore, "If I have ever had anything to do with those three women, may I be… If, far from having had anything to do with them, I so much as know their names or where they live, or have ever gone to look for them, then may I be…"

  When Cloud heard him swear such a violent oath, her suspicions were partly assuaged. "You really haven't been with them?" she asked.

  "I really haven't!"

  "In that case you may be forgiven."

  "Now that everything is cleared up," said Vesperus, "and I've done nothing wrong, won't you let me inside the bedclothes?"

  "My looks can't compare with those of the three women, so why not go and sleep with someone better-looking instead of bothering me?"

  "You're being far too modest again. Whatever gives you the idea you're not as good-looking as they are?"

  "There's nothing wrong with your eyes evidently. After all, it was only because you saw how gorgeous they were that you knelt down and kowtowed to them. If they'd been merely attractive, a close look, like the one I got, would have been ample. They'd never have had any kowtows!"

  "That was a purely spontaneous reaction, with no conscious intent behind it. Anyway you seem to be blaming me for kowtowing to them and not to you. You think I'm making distinctions, and that's why you're complaining. If so, there's an easy solution. Let me do some more kowtowing and pay off my debt with interest."

  He knelt down on the floor beside Cloud's pillow and rattled off several dozen resounding kowtows that shook the bed before Cloud stretched out a hand and helped him inside.

  Vesperus wriggled inside the bedclothes so that his lower instrument met hers like a carriage on a familiar road. Understandably, since it was their first encounter and their passion for each other had been delayed by their overtures, they could stand no more ceremony in bed, and it was a case of I want to join her and she wants to join me as the two objects met like old friends in no need of an introduction.

  Vesperus at once thrust in all the way. Cloud's vagina was of only average size, but her passions were aflame and she could wait no longer. She wanted to suffer a little pain so as to quell the itching sensation inside her, to put up with hardship in order to reach the frontier. Since she was able to accommodate him, Vesperus knew she was a worthy opponent, one to whom he could not offer a handicap, and he exerted all of his skill. He thrust and counterthrust in pitched battle, then insisted on withdrawing from the palace and driving into the lair itself. For the first dozen or two strokes the inside was slippery, but after fifty strokes it turned sticky. Cloud could bear the discomfort no longer and asked, "When I sleep with my husband, I find that things get easier as we go along. Why is it harder now than at the beginning?"

  "The one asset I have," said Vesperus, "is this poor thing of mine, which differs from other men's in two respects: it starts small and gets large, swelling up gradually after entering the vagina like dried food soaked in water; and it starts cold and gets hot, like a flint that heats up when struck, as if about to burst into sparks. Having these two qualities, I didn't want to conceal them but to make love to you and offer them for your appreciation."

  "I never believed you had such a treasure. I thought it was all a hoax. But since it's true, if you go on making me so uncomfortable, I'm
afraid I'll cease to enjoy it altogether."

  "You're too dry inside at present, and that's why you're feeling discomfort. But soon there'll be some fluid along to moisten things, and you'll feel quite different."

  "In that case I'll put up with the pain. I may as well let you do your worst, to get some moisture flowing and put an end to this dryness."

  "You're absolutely right." Placing her feet over his shoulders, he thrust hard and fast only a few dozen times before her vagina became slippery and his penis hot. Because of the former effect she ceased to feel any pain, and because of the latter she enjoyed herself more and more.

  "Dearest," she said. "What you said just now was no hoax either. It really is a treasure, and I'm beginning to enjoy it."

  Vesperus seized this chance to gain her favor by thrusting even more fiercely, at the same time asking in a wheedling tone, "Dear heart, if that was no hoax, it must be obvious that the other things I told you weren't a hoax either. You can trust me implicitly, so why not tell me about the three women?"

  "So long as you truly love me, of course I'll tell you; but what's the hurry?"

  "You're right," said Vesperus. Henceforth he said nothing and merely continued thrusting in silence.

  He had been working a good two or three hours when Cloud's hands and feet suddenly turned ice-cold. She broke out into a sweat and spent three times in succession.