Several years ago I wrote this vignette in Dutch. I've tried to translate it into English. What do you think of it?
The story of Nipplestiltskin
As told by my mom, her great-great-great-grandmother and all intermediate mothers.
During the French
"Empire" era (the reign of Emperor Napoleon I), female fashion for gala dinners,
"soirées" and dance parties dictated that ladies wear gowns with extremely deep
"décolletés", cut horizontally just above the nipple line and moreover worn without a bra.
Examples:
As often happened during a more vigorous dance, the decolleté's retention could suddenly fail, exposing too much bosom (I wish I had been born in that era). The affected ladies then surrepticiously adjourned to a
"recovery" room which was staffed by
boobyists, licensed professional nipple-jockies, who were trained to crank up sufficient nipple-erection to again support the gown's upper edge. In recalcitrant cases the nipple-fiddlers resorted to more drastic techniques, hence the ladies' slang expression
"Suck it to me!".
After a succesful procedure the ladies applied a few drops of Belladonna to their eyes, touched up their lipstick and then, with a refreshed alluring stance, trotted back to the dance floor. Think of it all as a kind of Napoleonic precursor to
"Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll".
The most accomplished
boobyist was a dwarf named
Nipplestiltskin (a cousin of
Rumplestiltskin). He was especially appreciated by the less pretty princess Angélique de
Caneton-Moche, who eagerly requested his expert services much more frequently than the other ladies. Her somewhat irritated fellow courtisanes nicknamed the princess, rather derogatory,
Rumplenipples before the "pick-'m-up" and
Nipplestilts when she came back.
Fortunately, the profession of nipple-handler has managed to adapt to the fickle female fashion. Nowadays they are in high demand for wet-T-shirt contests, several "Miss" pageants and many TV-anchors. They also have a promising future with female graphic artists who use finger-paint.
