Le Salon de Punition avec Alise et Vivienne: une fantaisie.

A slow and gentle snow whisked against the panes as I awaited you.

Beaumonde, long my family's manservant, had seen to it that the crystal was filled with one of the estate's finer vintages, that the fire was suitably roaring, the bedding properly turned, the glass oil lanterns suitably filled. I smiled as I stood at the window, observing the chestnut mares weave your carriage through the snowy and dormant garden. It had taken more than a little intrigue to arrange for this night.

"The evening's pets have arrived, Beaumonde," I purred over my shoulder. "Do straighten my waistcoat and then attend to them." He nodded, only the barest amount of powder from his wig sifting into the air as he did so. Having first refilled me, I savoured the wine on my lips as he departed with a quiet bow.

I heard the door in the foyer open, and tried to decide whose giggle it was I heard. You both had been to my home before, but never before together, and while your own family estates were leagues apart from one another, I knew that our common interest would make for a most neighbourly, if scandalous, evening.

I listened to your approach up the stairs, my back to the door as Beaumonde opened it. I continued enjoying the sight of the soft snow, the smile on my face likely reflected on the glass. All of our eyes met through our reflections upon the glistening pane when my manservant opened the parlour. Our eyes laughed together, only your shoes creaking the wooden floor and the crackling fire filling our ears.

"The ladies madame Alise and mademoiselle Vivienne, sir."

I turned, my smile unflinching. "Thank you, Beaumonde. The wine, if you please, and then you may retire to the ballroom unless and until summoned for."

"Sir," he repeated, and served you wine from the silver platter that the king himself had bestowed upon my uncle so many years before. Bowing first to me and then, perhaps for a moment too long, before each of you, he closed the door behind him and finally, we were alone together. No more pretenses, no more deceits in Paris, no unchaste smiles reserved from public view by the flurring of a fan or lace kerchief. The three of us alone in the parlour, far from the capital. At last.

My bow felt deliciously tawdry, an elegant ritual that almost contrasted with the purpose of our fair salon. Your returning curtsies seemed equally naughty, like a flash of ankle under a virgin's pannier. The fire glistened upon the buckles of my shoes as I stepped forward, taking each of your hands for a tender kiss. Your faces were clearly flushed already.

"Candide, then?" I asked you, Alise. "You expressed such admiration for Voltaire, and I'm afraid even saucier works are difficult to come by in Marseilles. I suspect his adventures, and Miss Cunegund's torments, shall keep us aptly entertained... whilst the mademoiselle bares herself from her lovely petticoats."

From deep downstairs, the quiet echo of the harpsichord daintily filled the house as Beaumonde began playing a Spanish sonata. Soler, whose compositions were deemed plebian by the less than sensual, enriched my sense of bawdiness for the evening. Beaumonde played him rythmically.

Our affair unfolded charmingly, the two of you elegant ladies and me. With superb wine and cordial conversation, we discussed the affairs of the day, matters of art and state, religion and poetry, and all the while catching knowing and flirtacious glances to one another. Madame Alise, you looked resplendent in your silken corsetry of emerald hue, your luxurious golden locks cascading upon your bare shoulders like mythic fleece from a Mediterannean island. And you, naughty Vivienne, your dark curls tried vainly to hide your blushing face as your beating heart thundered under your peach chemise. Even Alise indulged in the occasional leer toward you, and I myself enjoyed watching the licking of her painted lips when she would discretely glance upon your heaving bosom, dear Vivienne.

And then the churchtower struck ten and all fell silent and ominous between us.

Beaumond's playing continued unabated, gentle and ethereal, elsewhere in the house, but the echoing chimes resounded through the icy trees and windswept fields outside. The agreed hour had come, and the three of us knew perfectly well what would follow, as arranged from the many secret notes we had shared over the weeks before. I stood, reached for the bookcase, and handed you, Alise, the volume bound in soft, red deerskin. Your smile was scandalous.

"But first, monsieur, the basket, oui?" you asked. I nodded with a grin. Poor Vivienne only sat still, her breath quickening. Her eyes blinked in anticipation.

You stood and located the wicker chest on the floor beside the fire. From inside, you withdrew the thick, burgundy Oriental ropes, soft and heavy velvet, tassled with small bells of ivory and silver, and stood with them before tender Vivienne. She raised herself, and you assisted her in the gentle removal of her bodices and skirts, revealing her intimate chemise. She blushed all the more, and knowing the game, you then bound her wrists with the ropes fashioned by hands from mysterious China. I sat on the chaise beside the window, where I have always sat for the torment of my pets.

You gently eased tender Vivienne across my lap. Her hands dangled to the floor, bound at the wrists. Once placed, you bound her ankles as well, assuring that her balance was so slightly off.

"Please read, darling Alise," I softly spoke to you, my hands resting on Vivienne's back. You smiled, sipped the wine, sat near the fire, eased the volume open, and began.

"The baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but even windows, and his great hall was hung with tapestry. He used to hunt with his mastiffs and spaniels instead of greyhounds, and his groom served him for huntsman..."

I pet your hair, sweet Vivienne, my attentions to you as you lay upon my legs. Your curls sifted across the rings on my fingers as my free hand gently caressed your exposed ankles. That hand soon began slowly drawing your hem upward, your milky calves revealed, the rear of your knees, those magnificently tender thighs graced to you by Our Lord God, and finally...

"My lady baroness was a person of no small consideration, and then she did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded universal respect. Her daughter was about seventeen years of age, fresh colored, comely, plump, and desirable..."

"Oh, Vivienne," I softly whispered. "How blessed by heaven you are. Such a derriere deserves painful and yearning praise by cloisters of frustrated monks from all over fair France."

The winter wind whisked more ice and snow upon the leaded windowpanes as I raised my hand and administered the first strike of the evening. The seam of your saucily exposed round bottom was met with four firm fingers and a flattened palm, the sharp crispness of its smack only matched by the snapping wet logs in the fire. You shook, cried out, and were still. Alise paused, perhaps to look up from her vellum pages before returning to read aloud. I am certain that I witnessed a grin.

"The baron’s son seemed to be a youth in every respect worthy of the father he sprung from. Candide thought Miss Cunegund excessively handsome, though he never had the courage to tell her so..."

Caressing your tender skin, shameful Vivienne, brought such swelling under my breeches. How I adore the feel of the breach between your budding cheeks. Whilst my striking palm continued to rain tender torment upon you, I became doubtless that my pike could be felt stabbing upward to your covered navel. Was it the fire that brought droplets to my brow? Had I too much wine already? Between strikes, both fierce and fluttering, your warm and curvaceous bottom became my north star, guiding me toward pleasures deep withn my breast as I exposed and explored you in a fashion only known to the rudest of Versailles ladies.

"As Miss Cunegund had a great disposition for the sciences, she observed with the utmost attention to her experiments. Quite pensive and filled with the desire of knowledge, she imagined she might be a sufficing reason for young Candide, and he for her. When she happened to meet the young man, she blushed, and he blushed also. She wished him a good morning in a flattering tone..."

I smiled to beautiful Alise as she read on, and enjoyed the sparkle in her seductive eyes as she shared my visual pleasure in your lovely arse, Vivienne. I smirked as I listened to her alluring throat dry itself in the warmth of the room, and for witnessing our activities, and paused to taste my wine when she did the same to aid her voice. But you, raven-haired vixen, not so virtuous Vivienne, you hung unsteadily tense and firm across my knees as you awaited my next blow. When it came, fast and harsher than before, raining haughty evil upon your mother's baby's skin, you could not help yourself but raise your head high in your exquisite distress to look straight into Madame Alise's conspiratorial face as you screamed aloud. You continued to cry out as my hand became a savage blur, your head shaking from one side to another as I held you tightly. Your whimpering, sniffling screams, your pants and sudden gasps for merciful air, your tearful pleas resounded throughout my parlour to little avail. There was even the briefest pause from the far ballroom as Beaumonde likely heard you as well.

"The next day, as they were rising from dinner, Cunegund and Candide slipped behind the screen. The miss dropped her handkerchief, the young man picked it up. She innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace, and their lips met. Their eyes sparkled. Their knees trembled. Their hands strayed..."

I caught my breath as I paused. I wiped my brow with a kerchief. I slowly caressed your burning seam. Your flesh is aflame with loving punishment.

In an act of the utmost rudeness and manly daring, an act which would scandalize the lot of your entire family history were it to become known in the streets, I then teased your nethermost flower, obedient Vivienne, your petals, and from which withdrew a lustful fingertip of Venus' own nectar from your most secret of jewels. Lifting the offending finger to my gaze, I admired the gloss upon my flesh with lamplight. With a gentle moan from deep within me, I then committed the most profane act of indulgence to paint the very underside of your tender chin with this, your own elixir. Can you not feel how your torment entices you to sin? Can you not love the incubus who escorts you into your desired perdition? Your womanhood is as a moonlit field on a warm early May morning, though your dew is not the fruit of kisses or love notes or poems from unrequited farmboys, but from the firmness of my punishing hand feeling, striking, opening, taunting, probing, and using your ladyship's exquisite and beautiful derriere for my own pestilent pleasure.

With a soft caress, I eased the discomfort upon your fiery flesh, for by now your skin glowed like the smouldering coals beside Alise. I eased you to the floor as she lowered the book to her lap, and the three of us smiled to one another in a tender silence. You raised your wrists to me with a pleading look in your eyes, and I undid the magnificent Peking bonds. I permitted you to withdraw the ropes from your ankles by yourself, and you seemed to enjoy this moment of return to your more courtly, more respectable sense of presence. Offering you my hand, we stood together, and only then did we share a kiss.

Alise waited, enjoying the lovliness. I motioned my eyes toward her, and as I sipped the wine from the crystalware, you carried the ropes back to her. Even in your crumpled chemise, smarting with the sting of my love, you were as regal as any lady of His Majesty's court.

But you too knew the next step in our salon, in our game. As if on cue, your eyes met with Alise's just as the churchtower in the village began to strike the eleventh hour. With a smirk upon your face and a flutter of your dark eyes, you held the burgundy ropes before our panting reader of Voltaire.

"Madame Alise," you whispered as you reached for her wrist. "Monsieur believes it is now my turn to be reading aloud."



© 2009. All rights to text reserved. Portions quoted from Voltaire's Candide, public domain.