"Desire's Detective" by Jacqueline Sapphire
In glamorous Versailles someone is murdering the Jesters.
Feisty Coursesan turned Detective Noelle de Jouissance investigates the crimes and finds herself embroiled in the sex-mad Royal Family’s erotic secrets; her virginal sidekick, Desiree, is being pursued by the King's lecherous brother; the King is out to seduce the Queen and her Mistress, and the only clue to the suspect's identity is a tattoo on his scrotum...
A deliciously raunchy Historical satire: a funny, tongue-in-cheek take on the sexy shenanigans at Louis XV’s notoriously sinful Court.
Excerpt:
The coach sped over the bumps and stones, mercilessly throwing its young passenger back and forth against the velvet cushions. Desireé sighed. She could hardly believe she was leaving her childhood home and refuge behind. The lovely landscape of poverty-stricken rural France unspooled before her eyes. The picturesque villages and cultivated fields; the charming chateaus were a grim contrast to the pinched faces of the bare-foot children.
Desireé knew her life’s true mission was amongst these people, tending to their needs, nurturing their souls; and not in glittery Versailles, in high-heels and satin. She clasped her delicate hands together and closed her eyes tightly.
“My dear, you must be strong”, the voice of the Mother Superior at St Cyr echoed in her memory. “God calls and we must answer. Do not doubt there will be many thirsty souls at Court: you will be a fount of goodness, a shining light. Perhaps more needed than you could imagine…”
She had been about to enter the Novitiate when the fateful letter had arrived, ordering her to present herself at Court; and place herself in the care of her cousin, Mm. Noelle de Jouissance, her only living relative. Desireé remembered her vaguely, a green-eyed angelic-looking girl seven years her senior. She could hardly believe all her plans for the future, her tranquil life with the Sisters could so easily be overturned by one letter.
The cracking of a whip and a vicious scream of invective from the coachman tore her from her reverie. The coach now trundled between stunning gardens, manicured lawns interrupted by fountains where nude statues reposed in languorous poses, sometimes spouting water from… gasping - Desireé averted her eyes.
Before her, Versailles unfolded in all its splendor; like a fanciful sugar confection cast into stone by a dizzy Fairy-Godmother. The sour-faced coachman threw down her luggage, then leapt down and opened the coach door. Trembling, Desireé alighted and stood riveted, as he drove away. Never had she felt more alone, more abandoned than at that moment, not even as a six-year old orphan.
“Desireé?” A husky voice, with a lilting quality spoke from behind her. Gasping, Desireé turned and found herself facing (had she but known it) the woman who was to be the single most important influence in her future life: a tall figure - lissome, but somehow voluptuous - moved gracefully towards her. She glimpsed glistening emerald eyes, and a lush scarlet mouth, before she found herself enveloped in an intoxicating cloud of jasmine, pressed against firm springy breasts.
“Oh my dear, Sacré Dieu, how you’ve grown!” This, this lush fleshed woman with the full pouting mouth, her rouged nipples peeking over the edge of her scandalously low-cut bodice must be Noelle. Her cousin Noelle! Desireé found herself flushing. How could she stand there, her breasts overflowing, her waist so tightly strapped her hips swelled with obscene ripeness under the farthingales. She found herself fascinated, unable to draw her horrified eyes away from a black velvet patch glued onto Noelle’s left breast, an inch above the crimson peak.
“My little Desireé, you are so pretty! We must find you something to wear, you look like a nun.” Desireé found herself being firmly herded through a luxuriously appointed sitting-room, up a narrow staircase, two floors, a long corridor, and into a large but modestly furnished room.
“Here, darling, you will stay here with me.” Noelle sat on a graceful chair and gestured Desireé onto another.
“Tell me about yourself, what can you do? Do you speak English? Italian?” Noelle leaned forward eagerly “Do you sing, or play the clavichord? Perhaps you are talented in other pursuits?” Her cousin was turning out to be quite disturbing in her mannerisms; her pink tongue seemed to lick out her words, “we de Jouissance girls must move up in the world, my dear.”
That evening, dressed in a pale grey silk gown with a very modest décolletage, the work of the St Cyr seamstress, (after refusing point-blank a frothy scarlet voile confection proffered by Noelle as «sensual» that left her shoulders and her small breasts practically nude) she attended her very first Versailles dinner and masked ball.
The people were astonishingly friendly: not at all what she was expecting from the notoriously standoffish aristocracy. The Ladies smiled openly at her, running admiring eyes over her dress and upswept – and un-powdered - hair; the Gentlemen were even more amiable, stopping Noelle to beg for an introduction. Really, these people had a most unsettling habit of licking their lips. It looked very unpleasant, animalistic even. A few of them actually slavered. One elderly Gentleman, overcome by paternal affection, kept planting moist kisses on her hands and wrists, and was shortsightedly moving up her arms when Desireé finally managed to extricate herself from his grasp.
Noelle watched sympathetically as she patted her hands dry on the back of her skirt.
“I hate that, especially on my tits.” Desireé gaped at her cousin in horror. “Oh please! You telling me no-one’s drooled on your boobs?”
“N-No!” she gasped “N-never!” Noelle drew her into one of the doorways and stared at her in horror.
“Desireé, are you a virgin?”
“O-of course!!!”
“Bon Dieu de la Merde! A virgin.” Noelle was dead white, “What am I going to do with a virgin in Versailles?” Her hands trembled as she handed Desireé an egret’s feather mask.
“You sit, you don’t talk to anyone, you don’t go anywhere. After the ball we will talk. Now, I have work to do…”
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