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Venus In Furs 4
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
Venus In Furs, an etext in eight sections.
This is section 4 of 8.
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The little bronze clock, crowned with a cupid who has just shot his
arrow, struck the hour of midnight.
I rose and made to leave.
Wanda said nothing, but she embraced me and drew me back on the ottoman;
she began kissing me again, and this speechless language was so clear, so
convincing --
It told me more than I dared comprehend; a languorous abandon seemed to
pervade Wanda's entire being: what voluptuous softness there was in the
twilight of her half-closed eyes, in the red torrent of her hair shimmering
faintly under its white powder, in the red and white satin which crackled
around her with every movement, in the heaving ermine of the jacket which
swathed her so negligently!
"Please..." I stammered, "-- but no, you will be angry with me."
"Do with me what you will," she whispered.
"Well then, whip me, or I shall go mad."
"Have I not forbidden all that!" she said sharply. "You are
incorrigible."
"Ah, I am so terribly in love..." I had sunk to my knees, burying my
burning face in her lap.
"I really believe," she said thoughtfully, "that your madness is nothing
but the rage of unsatisfied desire. Our unnatural way of life must produce
such illness. If you were less chaste, you would be quite sane."
"Then make me sane," I murmured. My hands were running through her hair
and playing tremulously with the gleaming fur which threw all my senses into
disorder as it rose and fell like a moonlit wave on her heaving breast.
And I kissed her -- no, it was she who kissed me, fiercely, mercilessly,
as if she wanted to murder me with her kisses. I was as if in a delirium, I
had long since lost my reason, and now I was as breathless as she. I sought
to free myself.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"I am suffering agonies..."
"You are suffering?" She burst into bitter, mocking laughter.
"You laugh!" I groaned. "Have you no idea --"
All of a sudden she became serious. She took my head between her hands
and with a violent movement drew me to her breast.
"Wanda..."
"Yes, but you enjoy suffering," she said, and laughed again. "Come now,
let me bring you to your senses."
"Yes," I cried, "I no longer care whether you will belong to me for ever
or only for a moment of ecstasy, I wish only to drink my happiness to the
full. You are mine now -- and it is better to lose you than never possess
you."
"Now you are sensible," she said. She kissed me again with her
murderous lips; I tore the ermine and the film of lace aside, and her naked
breast surged against mine.
Then my senses left me --
The first thing I remember is the instant when I saw blood dripping from
my hand, and I asked, with all the languor of satiety, "Did you scratch me?"
"No, I think I have bitten you."
Strange, how every relationship assumes a different aspect as soon as a
third person steps in.
We have spent marvellous days together; we have visited the mountains
and lakes, have read together, and I have finished Wanda's portrait. And how
well we loved each other all that time, how well attuned was our flesh, how
beautiful her smiling face!
Now a friend of hers has arrived, a woman living apart from her husband,
somewhat older, more experienced and less scrupulous than Wanda; her
influence is already making itself felt at every turn.
Wanda wrinkles her brows, shows a certain impatience with me. Has she
ceased to love me?
For nearly a fortnight this intolerable restraint has weighed on us.
Her friend lives with her; we are never alone. A circle of men now surrounds
the two young women. With my serious and melancholy air I am playing an
absurd role as lover. Wanda treats me like a stranger.
Today, while we were all out walking, she lingered behind with me. I
saw this was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But then, what she said to
me!
"My friend," she said, "does not see how I can love you. She thinks you
neither handsome nor otherwise specially attractive, and she keeps telling me
from morning to night about the charm of the gay life in the capital, she
hints at the advantages I could enjoy there, the brilliant parties I could go
to, the handsome and distinguished admirers I could have. But what good is
all that to me, since I happen to be in love with you."
For a moment my breath failed me, then I said, "I would not, for the
world, stand in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not consider me, I beg
you." I raised my hat and allowed her to walk ahead. She looked at me in
surprise, but did not say a word.
When I happened to be beside her on the way back, she pressed my hand by
stealth, and her glance was so radiant, so full of the promise of bliss, that
in a moment all the torments of these past days were forgotten and all my
wounds were healed. Now I know how much I love her.
"My friend has complained of you," Wanda told me today.
"Perhaps she feels that I despise her."
"But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?" she cried, pulling
my ears with both hands.
"Because she is a hypocrite," I said. "I respect only a woman who is
really virtuous or one who lives openly for pleasure."
"Like myself, for example," Wanda replied merrily. "But you see, my
child, a woman cannot do that very often. She can be neither as gaily sensual
nor as emotionally free as a man. While in her heart she wishes to enslave
one man for good, she herself is the creature of her own desire for change.
The result is a conflict, and thus -- usually against her will -- falsehood
and deception enter into her behaviour and corrupt her whole character."
"That is quite true," I said. "It is the transcendental quality with
which women wish to invest love that leads them into deception."
"But the world also demands such deception of them," Wanda retorted.
"Look at my friend, she has a husband as well as a lover in Lemberg, and has
found a new admirer here; and she deceives all three, yet is cherished by
them all, and respected by the world into the bargain."
"That is no concern of mine," I exclaimed. "But she should leave you
alone. She is treating you like an article of commerce --"
"And why not?" my beautiful mistress interrupted. "Every woman has the
impulse or desire to draw some advantage from her attractions -- and there is
a good deal to be said for giving oneself without either love or pleasure,
because by doing so in cold blood one can reap the greatest profit."
"Wanda, what are you saying?"
"Why not?" she said. "And now, mark well what I am telling you. Never
feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangerous elements in
a woman's nature than you imagine. Women are neither as good as their
admirers and defenders claim they are, nor as bad as their detractors make
them out. Woman's character is the want of character. The best woman will on
occasion descend into the mire, and the worst will unexpectedly rise to deeds
of greatness and goodness and put to shame those who despise her. No woman is
so good, or so bad, but that at some moment she may be capable of the most
diabolical and divine, the filthiest and the purest of thoughts, sentiments
and actions. Despite the march of civilisation, woman remains the same as
when she came from the shaping hand of nature, she has the nature of a savage,
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