Vesperus noticed the state she was in and was overcome with pity. "My sweet little darling, can't you bear it anymore?"
She nodded, unable to reply.
Vesperus slipped off to let her recover. He knew she could not endure it if he went on, but he loved her too much to stop. In the end all he could do was take her in his arms and draw her on top of him, in which manner, fitted snugly together, they slept until dawn.
Cloud and Lucky Pearl arose early and, with a view to working out a long-term plan with Vesperus, visited Lucky Jade's bedroom to urge him out of bed. On opening the screen, they found Lucky Jade sprawled on top of him and awoke them both.
"We won't need any candles when we light up tonight," they said mockingly.
"If the oil is all used up and there aren't any candles left, don't blame us!" said Lucky Pearl.
After a few more jokes they put their problem to Vesperus. "If you leave every morning and return every night, sooner or later someone is going to notice," they explained. "If you're gone every night, even your own concubine will suspect you of having an affair and try to find out about it. Can you think of any solution? It would be best if you could stay here a while and not return home even in the daytime. If we could be together, we wouldn't necessarily have to make love all the time. It would be fun to play chess, write poetry, tell jokes. Do you happen to have some brilliant scheme that would bring all this about?"
"Before I came over," said Vesperus, "I put the most marvelous plan into effect. I didn't leave everything until now."
"What is that?" they asked.
"My concubine is pregnant and can't sleep with me anymore. I spoke to her yesterday and suggested that since I've been away from home a long time, it might be a good idea if I made a return visit during her pregnancy. The whole journey need take only three months, which would bring me back in time for the delivery and free me from having to go home afterward, at a time when we could be enjoying ourselves. She said it made good sense to her. On my return to the house this time, I'll pack up and set off with one of my pages, making as if to return home but actually coming over here. During these next three months we'll not only write poems, play chess, and tell jokes, we'll even have time to put on [chuan] some plays."
The three women jumped for joy. "It's such a brilliant scheme, not even Chen Ping could have thought it up!" [79]
"There's one other thing I need to discuss with you. I have two pages, one a bit naive, the other rather smart. I'm going to leave the naive one at home and bring the smart one with me. But the trouble with this lad is that he has his master's ways about him-he's sex-crazy. If we don't let him have a piece of the pie, he'll get restless and want to go back, which will only lead to trouble. What can you suggest?"
"That's simple," said Lucky Pearl. "We have plenty of maids, and we'll just give him one at bedtime and let him enjoy himself. It will serve to tie him down and also stop up the maids' mouths and prevent them from tattling when our husbands get back."
"Good idea," said Vesperus. Their arrangements made, the women saw him off. That same evening he returned with his bags.
From then on, not only did Vesperus lie down drunk amid the flowers and savor every erotic delight, even his page turned into a miniature version of Lin Bu, who was surrounded by his plum-blossom wives until he almost died of the accumulated scent. [80]
Alas, one day the beauties of spring will fade in the old garden and thoughts of the past will be too painful to bear.
CRITIQUE
Far from feeling jealous of her sworn sisters, Cloud was prepared to share the man she loved with her kindred spirits. Immoral as her conduct may have been, it has much to commend it as an act of friendship. If you look for comparable behavior among men, you won't find any. Nowadays the projects that sworn brothers embark on may not be entirely moral, either, but the spirit of envy is even stronger among them than among outsiders. What a lucky thing such men were not born as women! As women they would have gone to extremes and not rested until they had run the gamut of debauchery.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Poem:
The women hid Vesperus in their house, and each of them slept with him for one night, in order of seniority, after which the rotation began again, all without discord. After several rotations, Vesperus added a new rule entitled the "Thrice Alone Once Together Coordinated System": after sleeping with him individually for three nights, they were to sleep with him collectively for a night before returning to the rotation. Thanks to this new rule, they were able to experience the joys of togetherness.
Once the rule was established, they set up another, extra-wide bed and made for it a five-foot-long pillow and a coverlet sewn from six widths of material. When they slept together, Vesperus would get the three sisters to lie side by side, while he himself rolled here and there from body to body, never touching the bed, but making love wherever he fancied as he worked his way from one side to the other. Luckily none of the women possessed a great deal of sexual stamina, and after thrusts ranging in number from one hundred to two hundred, they would want to spend. When the woman in the middle had spent, he would move to the one on the left, and when she had spent, he would turn to her neighbor on the right. A few hours sufficed to complete his main task. The rest of the time he liked to spend fondling their soft charms and savoring their fragrance. The bliss that was now his had been enjoyed in the past, even among emperors, by only a handful of epicures such as Xuanzong of the Tang, Yangdi of the Sui, and the Last Ruler of the Chen. Since all of the other, more straitlaced emperors had never enjoyed it, think how remote it was from the experience of some licentiate too poor to keep wife or concubine!
Shortly after Vesperus moved in, Cloud held a secret conclave with her sisters. "It's a marvelous piece of luck having this immortal, this treasure, here for our enjoyment," she said. "My only concern is that the best things in life always come to grief. At the height of success one ought to be constantly on guard against failure. We mustn't let any outsider know, or the news will spread. Then he'd have to leave, and that might be very awkward."
"This house is out of the way," said Lucky Pearl, "and we don't have any casual visitors, so what goes on in here will never be known outside. Even our own stewards have to wait beyond the inner gate, and we simply won't let them in. No, it's not men I'm worried about, it's a certain woman who lives nearby. If she ever finds out, the fun will be over."