Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  As one hypnotized, the prince was fully under Cinderella’s spell and eagerly waited for her to enlighten him further on her pleasure. It took effort and self-control to hold back and gently and carefully touch the place where her hand was pressing his into her soft flesh, but he concentrated all his energies on what she was trying to show him. She loosened her hold as he became more skillful, and it thrilled him when she moved her hips against his capable hand. Using the most sensitive parts of his fingertips, the prince very gently felt all around her exposed flesh, searching very vigilantly for a clue to her secrets. Just above her soft opening he discovered a small bud of flesh that appeared to be quite tender. He noticed how Cinderella quivered when he rubbed the little bud in just the right way, just at the top where it begins, in a circular motion, and at just the right tension and speed. It thrilled him to see her tremble and shake beneath his fingertips, and he could not resist every now and then slipping a finger into her, and shuddering when he felt the soft, silky wetness that was the reward for his efforts. Every now and then the prince, in his impatience, would unconsciously quicken the motions of his fingers, in his impatience to bring about Cinderella’s climax, but each time he did this, she would bring him back to attention with a gentle motion of her hand, as a reminder of how she liked it. Each of these little incidents caused another surge of excitement to fill his loins, until he thought he might explode. Even so, he was determined that she should be thoroughly satisfied and would have joyfully administered this pleasure to her throughout the night if she had wished it. However, Cinderella was presently breathing very quickly, in short little gasps. She had momentarily lost all awareness of the prince, for strange little fragments of sensual scenarios were playing themselves out inside her brain. The prince, meanwhile, could sense that he was very close to bringing his wife the satisfaction she had so often given him, so he focused all his concentration to what his fingers were doing. He forced himself to keep a slow, even pace, as his fingertips relentlessly rubbed and twirled her swollen flesh. Suddenly he realized she had arrived at the peak of her excitement, and it took all his self-control to keep the steady pace until she was fully relieved, but he did just that. And even when she was finished, he very leisurely and gently held her there, and then kissed and licked her there, relishing in her wet silkiness. Cinderella moaned and shuddered in utter contentment.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She slipped out of the room again, and up to the blue boudoir on the first floor. She sat in the window, and saw him go down the drive, with his curious, silent motion, effaced. He had a natural sort of quiet distinction, an aloof pride, and also a certain look of frailty. A hireling! One of Clifford's hirelings! "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." Was he an underling? Was he? What did he think of _her_? It was a sunny day, and Connie was working in the garden, and Mrs. Bolton was helping her. For some reason, the two women had drawn together, in one of the unaccountable flows and ebbs of sympathy that exist between people. They were pegging down carnations, and putting in small plants for the summer. It was work they both liked. Connie especially felt a delight in putting the soft roots of young plants into a soft black puddle, and cradling them down. On this spring morning she felt a quiver in her womb too, as if the sunshine had touched it and made it happy. "It is many years since you lost your husband?" she said to Mrs. Bolton, as she took up another little plant and laid it in its hole. "Twenty-three!" said Mrs. Bolton, as she carefully separated the young columbines into single plants. "Twenty-three years since they brought him home." Connie's heart gave a lurch, at the terrible finality of it. "Brought him home!" "Why did he get killed, do you think?" she asked. "He was happy with you?" It was a woman's question to a woman. Mrs. Bolton put aside a strand of hair from her face, with the back of her hand. "I don't know, my Lady! He sort of wouldn't give in to things: he wouldn't really go with the rest. And then he hated ducking his head for anything on earth. A sort of obstinacy, that _gets_ itself killed. You see he didn't really care. I lay it down to the pit. He ought never to have been down pit. But his dad made him go down, as a lad; and then, when you're over twenty, it's not very easy to come out." "Did he say he hated it?"

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Till she came to the clearing, at the far end of the wood, and saw the green-stained stone cottage, looking almost rosy, like the flesh underneath a mushroom, its stone warmed in a burst of sun. And there was a sparkle of yellow jasmine by the door; the closed door. But no sound; no smoke from the chimney; no dog barking. She went quietly round to the back, where the bank rose up; she had an excuse, to see the daffodils. And they were there, the short-stemmed flowers, rustling and fluttering and shivering, so bright and alive, but with nowhere to hide their faces, as they turned them away from the wind. They shook their bright, sunny little rags in bouts of distress. But perhaps they liked it really; perhaps they really liked the tossing. Constance sat down with her back to a young pine tree, that swayed against her with curious life, elastic, and powerful, rising up. The erect, alive thing, with its top in the sun! And she watched the daffodils turn golden, in a burst of sun that was warm on her hands and lap. Even she caught the faint, tarry scent of the flowers. And then, being so still and alone, she seemed to get into the current of her own proper destiny. She had been fastened by a rope, and jagging and snarring like a boat at its moorings; now she was loose and adrift. The sunshine gave way to chill; the daffodils were in shadow, dipping silently. So they would dip through the day and the long cold night. So strong in their frailty! She rose, a little stiff, took a few daffodils, and went down. She hated breaking the flowers, but she wanted just one or two to go with her. She would have to go back to Wragby and its walls, and now she hated it, especially its thick walls. Walls! Always walls! Yet one needed them in this wind. When she got home Clifford asked her: "Where did you go?" "Right across the wood! Look, aren't the little daffodils adorable? To think they should come out of the earth!" "Just as much out of the air and sunshine," he said. "But modelled in the earth," she retorted, with a prompt contradiction, that surprised her a little.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie went to the wood directly after lunch. It was really a lovely day, the first dandelions making suns, the first daisies so white. The hazel thicket was a lacework of half-open leaves, and the last dusty perpendicular of the catkins. Yellow celandines now were in crowds, flat open, pressed back in urgency, and the yellow glitter of themselves. It was the yellow, the powerful yellow of early summer. And primroses were broad, and full of pale abandon, thick-clustered primroses no longer shy. The lush, dark green of hyacinths was a sea, with buds rising like pale corn, while in the riding the forget-me-nots were fluffing up, and columbines were unfolding their ink-purple riches, and there were bits of bluebird's eggshell under a bush. Everywhere the bud-knots and the leap of life! The keeper was not at the hut. Everything was serene, brown chickens running lustily. Connie walked on towards the cottage, because she wanted to find him. The cottage stood in the sun, off the wood's edge. In the little garden the double daffodils rose in tufts, near the wide-open door, and red double daisies made a border to the path. There was the bark of a dog, and Flossie came running. The wide-open door! so he was at home. And the sunlight falling on the red-brick floor! As she went up the path, she saw him through the window, sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves, eating. The dog wuffed softly, slowly wagging her tail. He rose, and came to the door, wiping his mouth with a red handkerchief, still chewing. "May I come in?" she said. "Come in!" The sun shone into the bare room, which still smelled of a mutton chop, done in a dutch oven before the fire, because the dutch oven still stood on the fender, with the black potato-saucepan on a piece of paper beside it on the white hearth. The fire was red, rather low, the bar dropped, the kettle singing. On the table was his plate, with potatoes and the remains of the chop; also bread in a basket, salt, and a blue mug with beer. The tablecloth was white oil-cloth. He stood in the shade. "You are very late," she said. "Do go on eating!" She sat down on a wooden chair, in the sunlight by the door. "I had to go to Uthwaite," he said, sitting down at table but not eating. "Do eat," she said. But he did not touch the food. "Shall y'ave something?" he asked her. "Shall y'ave a cup of tea? t' kettle's on t' boil." He half rose again from his chair. "If you'll let me make it myself," she said rising. He seemed sad, and she felt she was bothering him. "Well, teapot's in there,"--he pointed to a little, drab corner cupboard; "an' cups. An' tea's on t' mantel ower yer 'ead."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was cruel for Clifford, while the world bloomed, to have to be helped from chair to bath-chair. But he had forgotten, and even seemed to have a certain conceit of himself in his lameness. Connie still suffered, having to lift his inert legs into place. Mrs. Bolton did it now, or Field. She waited for him at the top of the drive, at the edge of the screen of beeches. His chair came puffing along with a sort of valetudinarian slow importance. As he joined his wife he said: "Sir Clifford on his foaming steed!" "Snorting, at least!" she laughed. He stopped and looked round at the façade of the long, low old brown house. "Wragby doesn't wink an eyelid!" he said. "But then why should it! I ride upon the achievements of the mind of man, and that beats a horse." "I suppose it does. And the souls in Plato riding up to heaven in a two-horse chariot would go in a Ford car now," she said. "Or a Rolls-Royce: Plato was an aristocrat!" "Quite! No more black horse to thrash and maltreat. Plato never thought we'd go one better than his black steed and his white steed, and have no steeds at all, only an engine!" "Only an engine and gas!" said Clifford. "I hope I can have some repairs done to the old place next year. I think I shall have about a thousand to spare for that: but work costs so much!" he added. "Oh, good!" said Connie. "If only there aren't more strikes!" "What would be the use of their striking again! Merely ruin the industry, what's left of it: and surely the owls are beginning to see it!" "Perhaps they don't mind ruining the industry," said Connie. "Ah, don't talk like a woman! The industry fills their bellies, even if it can't keep their pockets quite so flush," he said, using turns of speech that oddly had a twang of Mrs. Bolton. "But didn't you say the other day that you were a conservative-anarchist," she asked innocently. "And did you understand what I meant?" he retorted. "All I meant is, people can be what they like and feel what they like and do what they like, strictly privately, so long as they keep the _form_ of life intact, and the apparatus." Connie walked on in silence a few paces. Then she said, obstinately: "It sounds like saying an egg may go as addled as it likes, so long as it keeps its shell on whole. But addled eggs do break of themselves." "I don't think people are eggs," he said. "Not even angels' eggs, my dear little evangelist."

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Yes, more story. Well, Berenice told me that nothing pleased her more than caring for me, seeing to my education, and setting standards for my behavior. She confessed that she could not help tricking Mamma into punishing me, because it gave her such pleasure to see me wriggle and cry and struggle when I was slapped on the face or spanked with a hairbrush. She said it troubled her conscience somewhat, but not excessively, since I often got off scot-free when I had been a regular little hellion. She asked me if I remembered how quickly she took possession of my body as soon as we were alone. I replied that these passionate moments surprised and flattered me, but I had not realized her excitement was caused by my suffering. She said she regretted the injustice of this treatment, and begged my pardon. I freely forgave her. I added that I did not mind being punished if I had in fact done something wrong, and that until I was properly punished for a misdeed, my conscience gave me no rest. Berenice then said she would cease to bring any complaints at all to Mamma, who was erratic and ineffectual, if I would agree to submit to her discipline. She promised to be fair as well as strict, and to act with my best welfare in mind. By this means, she hoped to make us both happier. She promised to release me from this contract at any point if that was my wish.” Elise took her own waffle from the iron and spread strawberries and cream on it. She told the next installment of the story between bites. “I agreed at once, even though the idea was a novel one. I adored my mother—we both did—but she treated us more like a permanent audience than a family. Berenice already had all the responsibility for mothering me. It seemed fair that she should have power and authority as well. So Berenice kissed me on the forehead, gave me a bonbon, then put me on the sofa with my sewing box and a glove that needed mending. After she left the room, I fell into a reverie. I was exhausted by my tears and without meaning to, I fell sound asleep. I was awakened by Berenice calling me to dress for dinner. When she saw I had not completed the sewing, she was not angry, but said calmly that it looked as if I needed a demonstration of the terms of our agreement.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Till she came to the clearing, at the far end of the wood, and saw the green-stained stone cottage, looking almost rosy, like the flesh underneath a mushroom, its stone warmed in a burst of sun. And there was a sparkle of yellow jasmine by the door; the closed door. But no sound; no smoke from the chimney; no dog barking. She went quietly round to the back, where the bank rose up; she had an excuse, to see the daffodils. And they were there, the short-stemmed flowers, rustling and fluttering and shivering, so bright and alive, but with nowhere to hide their faces, as they turned them away from the wind. They shook their bright, sunny little rags in bouts of distress. But perhaps they liked it really; perhaps they really liked the tossing. Constance sat down with her back to a young pine tree, that swayed against her with curious life, elastic, and powerful, rising up. The erect, alive thing, with its top in the sun! And she watched the daffodils turn golden, in a burst of sun that was warm on her hands and lap. Even she caught the faint, tarry scent of the flowers. And then, being so still and alone, she seemed to get into the current of her own proper destiny. She had been fastened by a rope, and jagging and snarring like a boat at its moorings; now she was loose and adrift. The sunshine gave way to chill; the daffodils were in shadow, dipping silently. So they would dip through the day and the long cold night. So strong in their frailty! She rose, a little stiff, took a few daffodils, and went down. She hated breaking the flowers, but she wanted just one or two to go with her. She would have to go back to Wragby and its walls, and now she hated it, especially its thick walls. Walls! Always walls! Yet one needed them in this wind. When she got home Clifford asked her: "Where did you go?" "Right across the wood! Look, aren't the little daffodils adorable? To think they should come out of the earth!" "Just as much out of the air and sunshine," he said. "But modelled in the earth," she retorted, with a prompt contradiction, that surprised her a little.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Hilda half liked being drugged. She liked looking at all the women, speculating about them. The women were absorbingly interested in the women. How does she look! what man has she captured? what fun is she getting out of it? The men were like great dogs in white flannel trousers, waiting to be patted, waiting to wallow, waiting to plaster some woman's stomach against their own, in jazz. Hilda liked jazz, because she could plaster her stomach against the stomach of some so-called man, and let him control her movements from the visceral centre, here and there across the floor, and then she could break loose and ignore "the creature." He had been merely made use of. Poor Connie was rather unhappy. She wouldn't jazz, because she simply couldn't plaster her stomach against some "creature's" stomach. She hated the conglomerate mass of nearly nude flesh on the Lido: there was hardly enough water to wet them all. She disliked Sir Alexander and Lady Cooper. She did not want Michaelis or anybody else trailing her. The happiest times were when she got Hilda to go with her away across the Lagoon, far across to some lonely shingle-bank, where they could bathe quite alone, the gondola remaining on the inner side of the reef. Then Giovanni got another gondolier to help him, because it was a long way and he sweated terrifically in the sun. Giovanni was very nice: affectionate, as the Italians are, and quite passionless. The Italians are not passionate: passion has deep reserves. They are easily moved, and often affectionate, but they rarely have any abiding passion of any sort. So Giovanni was already devoted to his ladies, as he had been devoted to cargoes of ladies in the past. He was perfectly ready to prostitute himself to them, if they wanted him: he secretly hoped they would want him. They would give him a handsome present, and it would come in very handy, as he was just going to be married. He told them about his marriage, and they were suitably interested. He thought this trip to some lonely bank across the lagoon probably meant business: business being _l'amore_, love. So he got a mate to help him, for it _was_ a long way: and after all, they were two ladies. Two ladies, two mackerels! Good arithmetic! Beautiful ladies, too! He was justly proud of them. And though it was the Signora who paid him and gave him orders, he rather hoped it would be the young milady who would select him for _l'amore_. She would give more money too. The mate he brought was called Daniele. He was not a regular gondolier, so he had none of the cadger and prostitute about him. He was a sandola man, a sandola being a big boat that brings in fruit and produce from the islands.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Why not? Feeling entangled with the other man? Well! If you want the truth from me, my child, it's this. The world goes on. Wragby stands and will go on standing. The world is more or less a fixed thing, and externally, we have to adapt ourselves to it. Privately, in my private opinion, we can please ourselves. Emotions change. You may like one man this year and another next. But Wragby still stands. Stick by Wragby as far as Wragby sticks by you. Then please yourself. But you'll get very little out of making a break. You can make a break if you wish. You have an independent income, the only thing that never lets you down. But you won't get much out of it. Put a little baronet in Wragby. It's an amusing thing to do." And Sir Malcolm sat back and smiled again. Connie did not answer. "I hope you had a real man at last," he said to her after a while, sensually alert. "I did. That's the trouble. There aren't many of them about," she said. "No, by God!" he mused. "There aren't! Well my dear, to look at you, he was a lucky man. Surely he wouldn't make trouble for you?" "Oh, no! He leaves me my own mistress entirely." "Quite! Quite! A genuine man would." Sir Malcolm was pleased. Connie was his favourite daughter, he had always liked the female in her. Not so much of her mother in her as in Hilda. And he had always disliked Clifford. So he was pleased, and very tender with his daughter, as if the unborn child were his child. He drove with her to Hartland's hotel, and saw her installed: then went round to his club. She had refused his company for the evening. She found a letter from Mellors. "I won't come round to your hotel, but I'll wait for you outside the Golden Cock in Adam Street at seven." There he stood, tall and slender, and so different, in a formal suit of thin dark cloth. He had a natural distinction, but he had not the cut-to-pattern look of her class. Yet, she saw at once, he could go anywhere. He had a native breeding which was really much nicer than the cut-to-pattern class thing. "Ah, there you are! How well you look!" "Yes! But not you." She looked in his face anxiously. It was thin, and the cheek-bones showed. But his eyes smiled at her, and she felt at home with him. There it was: suddenly, the tension of keeping up her appearances fell from her. Something flowed out of him physically, that made her feel inwardly at ease and happy, at home. With a woman's now alert instinct for happiness, she registered it at once. "I'm happy when he's there!" Not all the sunshine of Venice had given her this inward expansion and warmth.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "What is there to tell? He had risen from the ranks. He loved the army. And he had never married. He was twenty years older than me. He was a very intelligent man: and alone in the army, as such a man is: a passionate man in his way: and a very clever officer. I lived under his spell while I was with him. I sort of let him run my life. And I never regret it." "And did you mind very much when he died?" "I was as near death myself. But when I came to, I knew another part of me was finished. But then I had always known it would finish in death. All things do, as far as that goes." She sat and ruminated. The thunder crashed outside. It was like being in a little ark in the Flood. "You seem to have such a lot _behind_ you," she said. "Do I? It seems to me I've died once or twice already. Yet here I am, pegging on, and in for more trouble." She was thinking hard, yet listening to the storm. "And weren't you happy as an officer and a gentleman, when your Colonel was dead?" "No! They were a mingy lot." He laughed suddenly. "The Colonel used to say: Lad, the English middle classes have to chew every mouthful thirty times because their guts are so narrow, a bit as big as a pea would give them a stoppage. They're the mingiest set of lady-like snipe ever invented: full of conceit of themselves, frightened even if their boot-laces aren't correct, rotten as high game, and always in the right. That's what finishes me up. Kow-tow, kow-tow, arse-licking till their tongues are tough: yet they're always in the right. Prigs on top of everything. Prigs! A generation of lady-like prigs with half a ball each." Connie laughed. The rain was rushing down. "He hated them!" "No," said he. "He didn't bother. He just disliked them. There's a difference. Because, as he said, the Tommies are getting just as priggish and half-balled and narrow-gutted. It's the fate of mankind, to go that way." "The common people too, the working people?"

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Mother was leading the chase, but the G.A. just lived too long,” Tyre explained. “At age sixty-two she finally broke down and married my father, who was ailing. So she was disinherited, although it didn’t cause too many hard feelings. The G.A. always referred to Daddy as ‘the Stud.’ Mother once told her she had forgotten that men could be independently wealthy, too. The G.A. never quite approved of me knowing who my father was, although Mother and I traveled so much Daddy was just one of the relatives we visited. At any rate, when she died five years ago in a car crash in Madrid, I was her sole heir. Except for Consuela, of course. When the G.A. retired as C.E.O., she and Consuela had started an exclusive girl’s school in Switzerland for composers and conductors and musicians and singers, and all that property went to her, plus enough capital for upkeep.” Alex chuckled. “It must take a pile of money to keep this place up.” “Yes, but I have piles more,” Tyre said frankly. “And most of it is such old and civilized money, it’s very well behaved, it doesn’t want much minding. It takes care of itself and goes on making more. I have told my business managers to keep it out of South Africa and so forth, or course, but in the grand scale of my 1040 Form, this place is only a hobby. Even if it takes fourteen-hour days to keep it running.” “So why do this? Why not travel, or take up yacht racing, or Paris fashion shows? You could endow a college, or launch a satellite, or breed thoroughbred horses. You could gamble at Monte Carlo or dabble in international politics or invent new recreational drugs or build yourself an island paradise.” “Mmm, well, some of that I might do in the future, and some of it I do already, actually. But I wanted to do something for other women. After all, I am a feminist, albeit the fun kind. Something, something revolutionary yet decadent, appealed to me. What I started out with was a vague concept of a combination couturière, opium den, pachinko palace, and paramilitary training camp for an army of Amazon lovers, and this is where I wound up. I must say it certainly has upset an awful lot of people.” “So I hear.” “Well, casual, anonymous sex has never been available to women on a commercial basis before. It has changed what it means to be a lesbian, and some women don’t like that. Before the Calyx opened, a lot of women did volunteer work for lesbian organizations because it was a way to meet other women. Now they want to be paid. Who wants to do shit-work for free or sit through five-hour marathon meetings when they could be here, checking out the dancers?

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “God, I hate for it to be over,” Chris said. “I’ve never been part of anything like this. I don’t think it can be repeated, but it will certainly inspire, my, uh, future exploits.” “Really,” Joy said reverently. “Tyre, I hope you’ll keep me on tap for any carnivals you want to throw in the future.” “Of course. All of you are on the A-list. No question.” Alex slowly ground out her cigarette. “Is everybody coming to your place with us?” There was a chorus of “I am.” Kay and EZ looked at each other. “I don’t know about you,” Alex said, “but I’m in no shape to drive the bike home. I got mine locked up good, and security will keep an eye on it for me. Think that’ll be okay, Tyre?” “Sure, there’s a night watch. If it’s chained it’ll be fine.” She was relieved at Alex’s tact. She didn’t want Kay and EZ to pull away. Things were going to be weird enough for the two of them without a self-imposed exile back to the boys’-club world of Folsom Street. “Okay,” said Michael, “I’m parked right outside. Only one condition—Roxanne has to go out the same way she came in.” “In the mummy bag?” Roxanne said. “No, on our shoulders.” Tyre and Alex put their arms around each other and watched everyone else get a handful of Roxanne and hoist her off the floor. “Good thing she’s just a little girl,” Tyre said. Alex snorted. The rest of the crew was singing, “She’s Got a Jolly Good Asshole” to the tune of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” “You know,” Tyre said slowly, as she and Alex followed everybody else out, “we put your lady through some very heavy shit.” She turned out the lights and closed the door. “You could say that, all right.” “Where can you go from here? Even this has got to run out of steam eventually.” Alex thought about it for a long time. “Sell her?” she said. It was only half a joke. Tyre nodded, absorbed it. Would it be a permanent transfer of rights, or would there be a time limit? Would all privileges be sold, or simply a portion of them? Who would be able to afford such an exotic delight? It was a bewildering and exhilarating notion. “The Calyx of Isis wants the movie rights,” she said, and slid her tired, rich, albino ass through the limousine’s back door. All the way home, she stared at Roxanne, sleeping on Alex’s shoulder, and tried to calculate the fair-market value of that much love. The Hustler

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  SIMPLE LIFE I had started on a life of ease and comfort, but the experiment was short-lived. Although I had furnished the house with care, yet it failed to have any hold on me. So no sooner had I launched forth on that life, than I began to cut down expenses. The washerman’s bill was heavy, and as he was besides by no means noted for his punctuality, even two or three dozen shirts and collars proved insufficient for me. Collars had to be changed daily and shirts, if not daily, at least every alternate day. This meant a double expense, which appeared to me unnecessary. So I equipped myself with a washing outfit to save it. I bought a book on washing, studied the art and taught it also to my wife. This no doubt added to my work, but its novelty made it a pleasure. I shall never forget the first collar that I washed myself. I had used more starch than necessary, the iron had not been made hot enough, and for fear of burning the collar I had not pressed it sufficiently. The result was that, though the collar was fairly stiff, the superfluous starch continually dropped off it. I went to court with the collar on, thus inviting the ridicule of brother barristers, but even in those days I could be impervious to ridicule. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘this is my first experiment at washing my own collars and hence the loose starch. But it does not trouble me, and then there is the advantage of providing you with so much fun.’ ‘But surely there is no lack of laundries here?’ asked a friend. ‘The laundry bill is very heavy,’ said I. ‘The charge for washing a collar is almost as much as its price, and even then there is the eternal dependence on the washerman. I prefer by far to wash my things myself.’

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The management can’t decide who should pay for hauling the piles of junk away. But it was spontaneous, nothing you could count on. Oh, once a bunch of queens over on 4E got together and moved a guy out onto the street. He was stealing stuff, primarily other people’s dope. But another time on the floor just under that, somebody brought the wrong person home and got stabbed to death. Nobody went to check on him until the screaming stopped. When they doubled the rents, everybody paid. There’s no other place to go, really. Things are the same all over. I can cook in my room on a gas jet (uncapped illegally). It also provides all the heat since the furnace went ka-blooie. A tap was put into the water main through a hole in the wall by a former tenant who must have been a plumber. I found a Styrofoam box once that must be fifty years old, and I carved a lid for it out of plywood. When I can buy ice, that’s my refrigerator. I have hooks on one wall for my wok (one of my few treasures), a sharp knife, a spatula, a large spoon, and a cup. I keep my bowls and chopsticks on top of the cooler. I’m a pretty good scavenger, but I don’t bring stuff home if I don’t need it. There’s no room. The clinic is located in a middle-class residential neighborhood, the better to serve those suffering from patriarchal effluvia. Looks like tomorrow is garbage-collection day. Better keep an eye out for a tea kettle. I really want one. I think that whistle in the morning would cheer me up more than a hot cup of cha. And paper for the potty is always welcome. I try not to bring books home for that because I don’t have enough room to keep them, and I hate to tear them up. I had so many books in my room at school that I couldn’t hardly move. I don’t want to live like that again. Anyway, I know I never will, which is the same thing, isn’t it? In the projects, there’s a large bathroom with showers on every floor. That, along with the communal kitchen, is why they call these “luxury individual living quarters” when they put an add in the paper. My floor is pretty good, there’s me, a flock of he-shes, a couple of realmen, a painter, a band that practices infrequently (but for hours at a time), and two would-be junkies who spend most of their time looking for this exotic and scarce drug they’re supposedly hooked on or getting sick on substitutes. So when I go to the bathroom, the shower head usually hasn’t been ripped off and the drain usually hasn’t been clogged up with shit, and I don’t find broken glass on the floor or somebody else’s works in the sink too often.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Daniele was beautiful, tall and well-shapen, with a light round head of little, close-pale-blond curls, and a good-looking man's face, a little like a lion, and long-distance blue eyes. He was not effusive, loquacious, and bibulous like Giovanni. He was silent and he rowed with a strength and ease as if he were alone in the water. The ladies were ladies, remote from him. He did not even look at them. He looked ahead. He was a real man, a little angry when Giovanni drank too much wine and rowed awkwardly, with effusive shoves of the great oar. He was a man as Mellors was a man, unprostituted. Connie pitied the wife of the easily-overflowing Giovanni. But Daniele's wife would be one of those sweet Venetian women of the people whom one still sees, modest and flower-like in the back of that labyrinth of a town. Ah, how sad that man first prostitutes woman, then woman prostitutes man. Giovanni was pining to prostitute himself, dribbling like a dog, wanting to give himself to a woman. And for money! Connie looked at Venice far off, low and rose-coloured upon the water. Built of money, blossomed of money, and dead with money. The money-deadness! Money, money, money, prostitution and deadness. Yet Daniele was still a man capable of a man's free allegiance. He did not wear the gondolier's blouse: only the knitted blue jersey. He was a little wild, uncouth and proud. So he was hireling to the rather doggy Giovanni, who was hireling again of two women. So it is! When Jesus refused the devil's money, he left the devil like a Jewish banker, master of the whole situation. Connie would come home from the blazing light of the lagoon in a kind of stupor, to find letters from home. Clifford wrote regularly. He wrote very good letters: they might all have been printed in a book. And for this reason Connie found them not very interesting. She lived in the stupor of the light of the lagoon, the lapping saltiness of the water, the space, the emptiness, the nothingness: but health, health, complete stupor of health. It was gratifying, and she was lulled away in it, not caring for anything. Besides, she was pregnant. She knew now. So the stupor of sunlight and lagoon salt and sea-bathing and lying on shingle and finding shells and drifting away, away in a gondola was completed by the pregnancy inside her, another fulness of health, satisfying and stupefying. She had been at Venice a fortnight, and she was to stay another ten days or a fortnight. The sunshine blazed over any count of time, and the fulness of physical health made forgetfulness complete. She was in a sort of stupor of well-being. From which a letter of Clifford roused her.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  The eyes of the two women met: Mrs. Bolton's grey and bright and searching; Connie's blue and veiled and strangely beautiful. Mrs. Bolton was almost sure she had a lover, yet how could it be, and who could it be? Where was there a man? "Oh, it's so good for you, if you go out and see a bit of company sometimes," said Mrs. Bolton. "I was saying to Sir Clifford, it would do her ladyship a world of good if she'd go out among people more." "Yes, I'm glad I went, and such a quaint dear cheeky baby, Clifford," said Connie. "It's got hair just like spider webs, and bright orange, and the oddest, cheekiest, pale-blue china eyes. Of course it's a girl, or it wouldn't be so bold, bolder than any little Sir Francis Drake." "You're right, my Lady--a regular little Flint. They were always a forward sandy-headed family," said Mrs. Bolton. "Wouldn't you like to see it, Clifford? I've asked them to tea for you to see it." "Who?" he asked, looking at Connie in great uneasiness. "Mrs. Flint and the baby, next Monday." "You can have them to tea up in your room," he said. "Why, don't you want to see the baby?" she cried. "Oh, I'll see it, but I don't want to sit through a teatime with them." "Oh," said Connie, looking at him with wide veiled eyes. She did not really see him, he was somebody else. "You can have a nice cosy tea up in your room, my Lady, and Mrs. Flint will be more comfortable than if Sir Clifford was there," said Mrs. Bolton. She was sure Connie had a lover, and something in her soul exulted. But who was he? Who was he? Perhaps Mrs. Flint would provide a clue. Connie would not take her bath this evening. The sense of his flesh touching her, his very stickiness upon her, was dear to her, and in a sense holy. Clifford was very uneasy. He would not let her go after dinner, and she had wanted so much to be alone. She looked at him, but was curiously submissive. "Shall we play a game, or shall I read to you, or what shall it be?" he asked uneasily. "You read to me," said Connie. "What shall I read--verse or prose? Or drama?" "Read Racine," she said. It had been one of his stunts in the past, to read Racine in the real French grand manner, but he was rusty now, and a little self-conscious; he really preferred the loud-speaker. But Connie was sewing, sewing a little silk frock of primrose silk, cut out of one of her dresses, for Mrs. Flint's baby. Between coming home and dinner she had cut it out, and she sat in the soft quiescent rapture of herself, sewing, while the noise of the reading went on. Inside herself she could feel the humming of passion, like the after-humming of deep bells.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Tyre walked through the other rooms on the main floor—the disco (which also contained a stage for the strippers and the other sex shows), the refreshment bar, the game room (which held two pool tables, a dozen pinball machines, and twice as many video games)—and back to the elevator that would take her up to her office on the second floor. She didn’t bother to check each of the cubicles (plywood-enclosed beds that could be rented by the hour as private rooms) and the maze; that would have to wait until just before the Calyx opened. She also didn’t bother to go downstairs and tour the dungeons. They hadn’t gotten a lot of use this weekend, and Simba, the Dungeonmaster, was an excellent supervisor, or so Georgia seemed to think. Tyre smirked at herself in the mirrored panels of the elevator walls. Her office was off to one side of the second floor. The rest of it was taken up with the Jacuzzi and sauna, the showers, a locker room, the masseuses’ studio, and a big room lined with mattresses, with a mirrored ceiling, that a patron entered only if she was ready to take on all comers. The Calyx had another floor as well, but very few of the customers knew about it. This floor was kept available for staging fantasies a little more complex than the scenarios that could be enacted with someone you stumbled on under the black lights that dotted the maze. These fantasies also cost more than mere admission to the club. Tyre handled all these requests personally. It was one of her perks for shouldering the exhausting burden of managing the Calyx. “Bread and circuses is a lonely business,” she often told Georgia. Owning the Calyx made it easy for her to get access to beautiful women. But women who are starstruck, envious, or determined not to be impressed make poor friends and impossible lovers. Many of her employees had the same problem, and slept mostly with each other. The network of women who worked for the Calyx was alarmingly incestuous. It was one of the reasons she had subtly encouraged Michael to take Sara. Having another groupie to pass around would ease the sexual pressure her help put on one another. It would also keep Sara from entertaining any pretentious thoughts about her future. The indirect lighting and soft carpets of her office were soothing. So was the music—Phillip Glass. Tyre took off her sunglasses and slid them into her coat pocket. As she hung up her mink, the Siamese cat, Nineveh, brought her kittens, Sodom and Gomorrah, over for review. Tyre crouched and held out a finger. Each of the kittens gravely batted at and chewed on it. Then Nineveh took them away to be held down on one the couches in the reception area and scrubbed.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Better than with its eyes!" he said. "Will you drink?" "Will you?" She took an enamel mug from a twig on a tree, and stooped to fill it for him. He drank in sips. Then she stooped again, and drank a little herself. "So icy!" she said gasping. "Good, isn't it! Did you wish?" "Did you?" "Yes, I wished. But I won't tell." She was aware of the rapping of a woodpecker, then of the wind, soft and eerie through the larches. She looked up. White clouds were crossing the blue. "Clouds!" she said. "White lambs only," he replied. A shadow crossed the little clearing. The mole had swum out onto the soft yellow earth. "Unpleasant little beast, we ought to kill him," said Clifford. "Look! he's like a parson in a pulpit," said she. She gathered some sprigs of woodruff and brought them to him. "New-mown hay!" he said. "Doesn't it smell like the romantic ladies of the last century, who had their heads screwed on the right way after all!" She was looking at the white clouds. "I wonder if it will rain," she said. "Rain! Why! Do you want it to?" They started on the return journey, Clifford jolting cautiously downhill. They came to the dark bottom of the hollow, turned to the right, and after a hundred yards swerved up the foot of the long slope, where bluebells stood in the light. "Now old girl!" said Clifford, putting the chair to it. It was a steep and jolty climb. The chair plugged slowly, in a struggling unwilling fashion. Still, she nosed her way up unevenly, till she came to where the hyacinths were all around her, then she balked, struggled, jerked a little way out of the flowers, then stopped. "We'd better sound the horn and see if the keeper will come," said Connie. "He could push her a bit. For that matter, I will push. It helps." "We'll let her breathe," said Clifford. "Do you mind putting a scotch under the wheel?" Connie found a stone, and they waited. After a while Clifford started his motor again, then set the chair in motion. It struggled and faltered like a sick thing, with curious noises. "Let me push!" said Connie, coming up behind. "No! Don't push!" he said angrily. "What's the good of the damned thing, if it has to be pushed! Put the stone under!" There was another pause, then another start; but more ineffectual than before. "You _must_ let me push," she said. "Or sound the horn for the keeper." "Wait!" She waited; and he had another try, doing more harm than good. "Sound the horn then, if you won't let me push," she said. "Hell! Be quiet a moment!" She was quiet a moment: he made shattering efforts with the little motor. "You'll only break the thing down altogether, Clifford," she remonstrated; "besides wasting your nervous energy."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie went to the wood directly after lunch. It was really a lovely day, the first dandelions making suns, the first daisies so white. The hazel thicket was a lacework of half-open leaves, and the last dusty perpendicular of the catkins. Yellow celandines now were in crowds, flat open, pressed back in urgency, and the yellow glitter of themselves. It was the yellow, the powerful yellow of early summer. And primroses were broad, and full of pale abandon, thick-clustered primroses no longer shy. The lush, dark green of hyacinths was a sea, with buds rising like pale corn, while in the riding the forget-me-nots were fluffing up, and columbines were unfolding their ink-purple riches, and there were bits of bluebird's eggshell under a bush. Everywhere the bud-knots and the leap of life! The keeper was not at the hut. Everything was serene, brown chickens running lustily. Connie walked on towards the cottage, because she wanted to find him. The cottage stood in the sun, off the wood's edge. In the little garden the double daffodils rose in tufts, near the wide-open door, and red double daisies made a border to the path. There was the bark of a dog, and Flossie came running. The wide-open door! so he was at home. And the sunlight falling on the red-brick floor! As she went up the path, she saw him through the window, sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves, eating. The dog wuffed softly, slowly wagging her tail. He rose, and came to the door, wiping his mouth with a red handkerchief, still chewing. "May I come in?" she said. "Come in!" The sun shone into the bare room, which still smelled of a mutton chop, done in a dutch oven before the fire, because the dutch oven still stood on the fender, with the black potato-saucepan on a piece of paper beside it on the white hearth. The fire was red, rather low, the bar dropped, the kettle singing. On the table was his plate, with potatoes and the remains of the chop; also bread in a basket, salt, and a blue mug with beer. The tablecloth was white oil-cloth. He stood in the shade. "You are very late," she said. "Do go on eating!" She sat down on a wooden chair, in the sunlight by the door. "I had to go to Uthwaite," he said, sitting down at table but not eating. "Do eat," she said. But he did not touch the food. "Shall y'ave something?" he asked her. "Shall y'ave a cup of tea? t' kettle's on t' boil." He half rose again from his chair. "If you'll let me make it myself," she said rising. He seemed sad, and she felt she was bothering him. "Well, teapot's in there,"--he pointed to a little, drab corner cupboard; "an' cups. An' tea's on t' mantel ower yer 'ead."

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Thus whilst on the one hand I began to feel somewhat at ease about my profession, on the other hand Gokhale, whose eyes were always on me, had been busy making his own plans on my behalf. He peeped in at my chambers twice or thrice every week, often in company with friends whom he wanted me to know, and he kept me acquainted with his mode of work. But it may be said that God has never allowed any of my own plans to stand. He has disposed them in His own way. Just when I seemed to be settling down as I had intended I received an unexpected cable from South Africa: ‘Chamberlain expected here. Please return immediately.’ I remembered my promise and cabled to say that I should be ready to start the moment they put me in funds. They promptly responded, I gave up the chambers and started for South Africa. I had an idea that the work there would keep me engaged for at least a year, so I kept the bungalow and left my wife and children there. I believed then that enterprising youths who could not find an opening in the country should emigrate to other lands. I therefore took with me four or five such youths, one of whom was Maganlal Gandhi. The Gandhis were and are a big family. I wanted to find out all those who wished to leave the trodden path and venture abroad. My father used to accommodate a number of them in some state service. I wanted them to be free from this spell. I neither could nor would secure other service for them; I wanted them to be self-reliant. But as my ideals advanced, I tried to persuade these youths also to conform their ideals to mine, and I had the greatest success in guiding Maganlal Gandhi. But about this later. The separation from wife and children, the breaking up of a settled establishment, and the going from the certain to the uncertain- all this was for a moment painful, but I had inured myself to an uncertain life. I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one’s waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life. I reached Durban not a day too soon. There was work waiting for me. The date for the deputation to wait on Mr. Chamberlain had been fixed. I had to draft the memorial to be submitted to him and accompany the deputation. PART V PART IV 80.