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 Story of O (1954)

  It was at this point, just as she was thinking again with beating heart of Jacqueline’s lips, so pink and dainty beneath her downy fur, of the even more delicate and pinker ring between her buttocks, which she had only dared force on three occasions, that she heard Sir Stephen moving about in his room. She knew that he could see her, although she could not see him, and once again she felt that she was fortunate indeed to be constantly exposed this way, constantly imprisoned by these all-encompassing eyes. Young Natalie was seated on the white rug in the middle of the room, like a fly in a bowl of milk; while O, standing in front of the massive bureau which also served as her dressing table, and able to see herself from head to waist in a slightly greenish antique mirror which was streaked like the wrinkles in a pond, looked for all the world like one of those late nineteenth-century prints in which the women are wandering naked through their chambers in a subdued light, even though it is mid-summer. When Sir Stephen pushed open the door, she turned around so abruptly that one of the irons between her legs struck one of the bronze knobs of the bureau upon which she was leaning, and jingled. “Natalie,” Sir Stephen said, “run downstairs and get the white cardboard box in the front living room.”

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  It encourages you to question yourself, to speak the unspoken, and to be unafraid to challenge sexual and emotional correctness. By flinging the doors open on erotic life and domesticity, I invite you to put the X back in sex . 3 The Pitfalls of Modern Intimacy Talk Is Not the Only Avenue to Closeness We have no secrets, we tell each other everything. —Carly Simon, “We Have No Secrets” W HEN MY MOTHER TALKED ABOUT relationships, she didn’t have much to say about intimacy. “You need two things in a marriage,” she told me. “You need the will to make it work and you need to be able to make compromises. It’s not hard to be right, but then you are right and alone.” My father, who was always less pragmatic than my mother, more than filled the quota for expressiveness and demonstrativeness. He openly adored and adorned her with kisses, gifts, and attention. But if I had asked him whether or not they had intimacy, he would have looked at me perplexed, not knowing what I was talking about. He knew love, and he knew partnership, and they implicitly included the vastness of intimacy. For my parents and others of their generation, the modern discourse on intimacy would have eluded them altogether. Their relationship was far from perfect—they might have come to therapy for any number of reasons—but the notion of “working on their intimacy” would have been alien to them. When Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof , tells his wife, Golde, that he will allow his daughter to marry the man she loves (instead of the man he has chosen for her), he frames his decision with the understanding that “this is a new world.” It’s a world where people marry for love, far distant from the world in which he met Golde on their wedding day and was told by his father that he would learn to love her in time. Now, twenty-five years later, as he witnesses the burgeoning love of his daughter, he asks his wife if she does love him, after all these years. Golde answers with an amazing list of experiences they’ve shared in their life together, and she gives a beautiful and lyrical description of how the “old world” used to think of love and marriage. She washed his clothes, milked his cow, shared his bed, starved with him, fought with him, raised his children, cleaned his house, and cooked his meals. “If that’s not love, what is?” she asks. Knowing that Golde loves him doesn’t change anything, but Tevye ends the song by acknowledging that “after twenty-five years, it’s nice to know.” Golde’s picture of marriage doesn’t match what we today in the West commonly refer to as intimacy. We’d be more inclined to call it domesticity (at best) or age-old oppression (at worst). In the past, when marriage was a more pragmatic institution, love was optional. Respect was essential.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  not really. Not now, anyway. Maybe later, when she felt ready, but not now. That was fine with me, I said. Later would be fine. THE NEXT DAY was Thanksgiving. After breakfast Dwight packed everyone into the car and drove us around Chinook. Chinook was a company village owned by Seattle City Light. A couple of hundred people lived there in neat rows of houses and converted barracks, all white with green trim. The lanes between the houses had been hedged with rhododendron, and Dwight said the flowers bloomed all summer long. The village had the gracious, well tended look of an old military camp, and that was what everyone called it—the camp. Most of the men worked at the powerhouse or at one of three dams along the Skagit. The river ran through the village, a deep, powerful river crowded on both sides by steep mountains. These mountains faced each other across a valley half a mile wide at the point where Chinook had been built. The slopes were heavily forested, the trees taking root even in granite outcroppings and gullies of scree. Mists hung in the treetops. Dwight took his time showing us around. After we had seen the village, he drove us upstream along a narrow road dropping sheer to the river on one side and overhung by boulders on the other. As he drove he listed the advantages of life in Chinook. The air. The water. No crime, no juvenile delinquency. For scenery all you had to do was step out your front door, which you never had to lock. Hunting. Fishing. In fact the Skagit was one of the best trout streams in the world. Ted Williams—-who, not many people realized, was a world-class angler as well as a baseball great, not to mention a war hero—-had been fishing here for years. Pearl sat up front between Dwight and my mother. She had her head on my mother’s shoulder and was almost in her lap. I sat in the backseat between Skipper and Norma. They were quiet. At one point my mother turned and asked, “How about you guys? How do you like it here?” They looked at each other. Skipper said, “Fine.” “Fine,” Norma said. “It’s just a little isolated, is all.” “Not that isolated,” Dwight said. “Well,” Norma said, “maybe not that isolated. Pretty isolated, though.”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  It was an Episcopal priest who helped her find her way out of the Garden of Gethsemane. Familiar with the wise aphorism of Nietzsche, the Antichrist, “He who has a ‘why’ can put up with any ‘how,’” the priest reframed her suffering. “Your cancer is your cross,” he told her. “Your suffering is your ministry.” That formulation—that “divine illumination,” as Paula called it—changed everything. As she described her acceptance of her ministry and her dedication to easing the suffering of individuals stricken with cancer, I began to understand my assigned role: she wasn’t my project, I was hers, the object of her ministry. I could help Paula but not through support, interpretation, or even caring or fidelity. My role was to allow her to educate me. Is it possible that someone whose days are limited, whose body is infiltrated with cancer, can experience a “golden period”? Paula did. It was she who taught me that embracing death honestly permits one to experience life in a richer, more satisfying manner. I was skeptical. I suspected that her talk of a “golden period” was overdone, her typical spiritual hyperbole. “Golden? Really? Oh, come now, Paula, how can there be anything golden about dying?” “Irv,” Paula chided, “that’s the wrong question! Try to understand that what’s golden is not the dying but the full living of life in the face of death. Think of the poignancy and preciousness of last times: the last spring, the last flight of dandelion fluff, the last shedding of wisteria blossoms. “The golden period is also,” Paula said, “a time of great liberation—a time when you have the freedom to say no to all trivial obligations, to devote yourself wholly to whatever you most care about—the presence of friends, the changing seasons, the rolling swell of the sea.” She was deeply critical of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, medicine’s high priestess of death, who, failing to recognize the golden stage, had developed a negativistic clinical approach. Kübler-Ross’s “stages” of dying—anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance—never failed to arouse Paula’s ire. She insisted, and I am certain that she was correct, that such rigid categorizing of emotional responses leads to a dehumanization of both patient and doctor. Paula’s golden period was a time for intense personal exploration: she had dreams of wandering through enormous halls and discovering in her house new, unused rooms. And it was a time of preparation: she had dreams of cleaning her house from basement to attic and of reorganizing bureaus and closets. She prepared her husband efficiently and lovingly. There were times, for example, when she felt strong enough to shop and cook but deliberately refrained in order to train him to be more self-sufficient. Once she told me that she was very proud of him because he had for the first time referred to “my” rather than “our” retirement. At such times I sat wide-eyed in disbelief.

• From Story of O (1954)

  They had to lift their skirts to sit down, and in so doing O rediscovered, the moment she felt the smooth, cold leather beneath her thighs, that first moment when her lover had made her take off her stockings and panties and sit in the same manner on the back seat of the car. Conversely, after she had left the château and, dressed like everyone else except for the fact that beneath her innocuous suit or dress she was naked, whenever she had to lift her petticoat and skirt to sit down beside her lover, or beside another, were it on the seat of a car or the bench of a café, it was the château she rediscovered, the breasts proffered in the silk bodices, the hands and mouths to which nothing was denied, and the terrible silence. And yet nothing had been such a comfort to her as the silence, unless it was the chains. The chains and the silence, which should have bound her deep within herself, which should have smothered her, strangled her, on the contrary freed her from herself. What would have become of her if she had been granted the right to speak and the freedom of her hands, if she had been free to make a choice, when her lover prostituted her before his own eyes? True, she did speak as she was being tortured, but can moans and cries be classed as words? Besides, they often stilled her by gagging. Beneath the gazes, beneath the hands, beneath the sexes that defiled her, the whips that rent her, she lost herself in a delirious absence from herself which restored her to love and, perhaps, brought her to the edge of death. She was anyone, anyone at all, any one of the other girls, opened and forced like her, girls whom she saw being opened and forced, for she did see it, even when she was not obliged to have a hand in it.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The “voo” sound—by, first of all, focusing awareness upon the inner locus of the real problem—allows one to begin to change one’s experience from dreadful to pleasant and thus moves the situation from being a positive feedback loop (with negative consequences) to being a negative feedback loop, which helps restore homeostatic balance, equilibrium and, hence, feelings of goodness. This shift, even if only brief, opens an opportunity for the client to experience the warmth of the supportive therapeutic relationship, which, in turn, also provides a buffer against the rush of (sympathetic) hyperarousal soon to follow. Then the self-regulatory system (negative feedback loop) brings down arousal, allowing for much deeper, more stable and enduring sensations of goodness, as well as a more resilient nervous system and psyche.

• From Story of O (1954)

  He began by saying that she should not think that she was now free. With one exception, and that was that she was free not to love him any longer, and to leave him immediately. But if she did love him, then she was in no wise free. She listened to him without saying a word, thinking how happy she was that he wanted to prove to himself—it mattered little how—that she belonged to him, and thinking too that he was more than a little naive not to realize that this proprietorship was beyond any proof. But did he perhaps realize it and want to emphasize it merely because he derived a certain pleasure from it? She gazed into the fire as he talked, but he did not, not daring to meet her eyes. He was standing, pacing back and forth. Suddenly he said to her that, for a start, he wanted her to listen to him with her knees unclasped and her arms unfolded, for she was sitting with her knees together and her arms folded around them. So she lifted her nightgown and, on her knees, or, rather, squatting on her heels in the manner of Carmelites or of Japanese women, she waited. The only thing was, since her knees were spread, she could feel the light, sharp pricking of the white fur between her half-open thighs; he came back to it again: she was not opening her legs wide enough. The word “open” and the expression “opening her legs” were, on her lover’s lips, charged with such uneasiness and power that she could never hear them without experiencing a kind of internal prostration, a sacred submission, as though a god, and not he, had spoken to her. So she remained motionless, and her hands were lying palm upward beside her knees, between which the material of her nightgown was spread, with the pleats reforming. What her lover wanted from her was very simple: that she be constantly and immediately accessible. It was not enough for him to know that she was: she was to be so without the slightest obstacle intervening, and her bearing and clothing both were to bespeak, as it were, the symbol of that availability to experienced eyes. That, he went on, meant two things. The first she knew, having been informed of it the evening of her arrival at the château: that she must never cross her knees, as her lips had always to remain open. She doubtless thought that this was nothing (that was indeed what she did think), but she would learn that to maintain this discipline would require a constant effort on her part, an effort which would remind her, in the secret they shared between them and perhaps with a few others, of the reality of her condition, when she was with those who did not share the secret, and engaged in ordinary pursuits.

• From Story of O (1954)

  Hatless, wearing practically no make-up, her hair completely free, O looked like a well-brought-up little girl, dressed as she was in her twirled stripe or polka dot, navy blue-and-white or gray-and-white pleated sun-skirts and the fitted bolero buttoned at the neck, or in her more conservative dresses of black nylon. Everywhere Sir Stephen escorted her she was taken for his daughter, or his niece, and this mistake was abetted by the fact that he, in addressing her, employed the tu form, whereas she employed the vous. Alone together in Paris, strolling through the streets to window shop, or walking along the quays, where the paving stones were dusty because the weather had been so dry, they evinced no surprise at seeing the passers-by smile at them, the way people smile at people who are happy. Once in a while Sir Stephen would push her into the recess of a porte-cochere, or beneath the archway of a building, which was always slightly dark and from which there rose the musty odor of ancient cellars, and he would kiss her and tell her he loved her. O would hook her heels over the sill of the porte-cochere out of which the regular pedestrian door had been cut. They caught a glimpse of a courtyard in the rear, with lines of laundry drying in the windows. Leaning on one of the balconies, a blond girl would be staring fixedly at them. A cat would slip between their legs. Thus did they stroll through the Gobelins district, by Saint-Marcel, along the rue Mouffetard, to the area known as the Temple, and to the Bastille. Once Sir Stephen suddenly steered O into a wretched brothel-like hotel, where the desk clerk first wanted them to fill out the forms, but then said not to bother if it was only for an hour. The wallpaper in the room was blue, with enormous golden peonies, the window looked out onto a pit whence rose the odor of garbage cans. However weak the light bulb at the head of the bed, you could still see streaks of face powder and forgotten hairpins on the mantel-piece. On the ceiling above the bed was a large mirror. Once, but only once, Sir Stephen invited O to lunch with two of his compatriots who were passing through Paris. He came for her an hour before she was ready, and instead of having her driven to his place, he came to the quai de Bethune.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  We all ruminate on the undigested cud of unresolved problems, whether or not this helps us to solve them. “Unnecessary suffering,” through repetitive negative thinking, is well known to practitioners of meditation, Buddhism, Taoism and other spiritual traditions. It is also the impetus for cognitive-behavioral therapies. These practices, traditions and therapies point to a common solution: defeating the tyranny of obsessive thinking before it spews its toxic emissions into the body. However, approaches that attempt to tame the restless mind may not be nearly as accessible or effective as those that help us return to our bodies in a sustaining way. The poet Budbill discovered that when he fully engaged his body in purposeful activity, his mind finally rested. The immersion in his body is what allowed him to directly encounter the nitty-gritty, moment-to-moment experience of being alive. Rather than obsessive worry or regret, he opened to the experience of appreciation and gratitude in the “shining moment in the now.” For our distant forbearers, survival was the only game in town. This put them in a perpetually reactive mode—surviving from threat to threat, triggering one protective instinct after another. While we are under the domination of these same instincts, saddled with the reflexive reactions to perceived threat, we possess the opportunity to recognize them, stand back, observe and befriend these powerful sensations and drives, without necessarily acting on them. The conscious containment and reflection upon our wild and primal urges enlivens us and keeps us focused on actively pursuing our needs and desires. It is the basis for reflective self-awareness. Rather than automatically reacting to (or suppressing) our instincts, we can explore them mindfully, through the vehicle of sensate awareness. To be embodied (as I will use the term in referring to our contemporary experience) means that we are guided by our instincts, while simultaneously having the opportunity to be self-aware of that guidance. This self-awareness requires us to recognize and track our sensations and feelings. We unveil our instincts as they live within us, rather than being alienated from them or forcibly driven by them. These facts of life make living in the now, free of ruminative thoughts, a formidable task. When embodied, we linger longer in the lush landscape of the present moment. Even though we live in a world where bad things can and do happen, where unseen dangers nip at our heels, we can still live in the now. When we are able to be fully present, we can thrive with more pleasure, wonder and wisdom then we could have imagined.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “You should see the blanket she’s embroidering for me in occupational therapy. Two roses in the center, and around them she’s stitching teeny violets, mus’ be twenty of ’em, all along the edges. And she did the edges in a delicate red design. Honey,” Magnolia turned to Rosa, “will you bring that blanket into group tomorrow? And the picture you was drawin’ too?” Rosa blushed but nodded assent. Time was passing. I suddenly realized I hadn’t explored what the group could offer Magnolia. I had been too enchanted by the promise of her largesse and the memory of that refrain: “You would lose them . . . I know how to use them.” “You know, Magnolia, you should get something from the group too. You started the meeting by saying that what you want from the group is to be a good listener. But I’m impressed, very impressed, with what a good listener you already are. And a good observer too: look at the details you remember about Rosa’s blanket. So I don’t think you need a lot of help with learning to listen. How else can we help you in this group?” “Ah don’ know how dis group can help me.” “I heard a lot of good things said about you today. How does that feel?” “Well, natchally, dat feels good.” “But Magnolia, I have a hunch you’ve heard that before—that people have always loved you for how much you give. Why, the nurses were saying that very thing before the group met today—that you’ve raised a son and fifteen foster children and never stop giving.” “Not now. Ah can’t give nuthin’ now. Ah can’t move mah legs, and those bugs—” She shuddered suddenly, but her soft smile remained. “Ah don’t want to go back home no more.” “What I mean, Magnolia, is that it probably isn’t too helpful for others to tell you things about yourself that you already know. If we’re going to help you here, we need to give you something else. Maybe we’ve got to help you learn new things about yourself, give you some feedback about your blind spots, things you may not have known.” “Ah done tol’ you, Ah gets help by helpin’ other folks.” “I know that, and that’s one of the things I really like about you. But you know, it feels good to everyone to be helpful to others. Like Martin—look what it meant to him to help Rosa by being understanding;” “Dat Martin is sometin’. He don’ move too good, but he’s got a fine head on his shoulders, a real fine head.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, These beatitudes are most suitably enumerated. To make this evident it must be observed that beatitude has been held to consist in one of three things: for some have ascribed it to a sensual life, some, to an active life, and some, to a contemplative life [*See Q[3]]. Now these three kinds of happiness stand in different relations to future beatitude, by hoping for which we are said to be happy. Because sensual happiness, being false and contrary to reason, is an obstacle to future beatitude; while happiness of the active life is a disposition of future beatitude; and contemplative happiness, if perfect, is the very essence of future beatitude, and, if imperfect, is a beginning thereof. And so Our Lord, in the first place, indicated certain beatitudes as removing the obstacle of sensual happiness. For a life of pleasure consists of two things. First, in the affluence of external goods, whether riches or honors; from which man is withdrawn—by a virtue so that he uses them in moderation—and by a gift, in a more excellent way, so that he despises them altogether. Hence the first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which may refer either to the contempt of riches, or to the contempt of honors, which results from humility. Secondly, the sensual life consists in following the bent of one’s passions, whether irascible or concupiscible. From following the irascible passions man is withdrawn—by a virtue, so that they are kept within the bounds appointed by the ruling of reason—and by a gift, in a more excellent manner, so that man, according to God’s will, is altogether undisturbed by them: hence the second beatitude is: “Blessed are the meek.” From following the concupiscible passions, man is withdrawn—by a virtue, so that man uses these passions in moderation—and by gift, so that, if necessary, he casts them aside altogether; nay more, so that, if need be, he makes a deliberate choice of sorrow [*Cf.[1673] Q[35], A[3]]; hence the third beatitude is: “Blessed are they that mourn.”

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  It’s a sport he’ll come back to as an adult, culminating in the games of eros. Periods of being bold and taking risks will alternate with periods of seeking grounding and safety. He may fluctuate, though he’ll generally settle on one preference over another. And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. This never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves. Adult relationships mirror these dynamics all too well. We seek a steady, reliable anchor in our partner. Yet at the same time we expect love to offer a transcendent experience that will allow us to soar beyond our ordinary lives. The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what’s safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what’s exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. For a lucky few, this is barely a challenge. These couples can easily integrate cleaning the garage with rubbing each other’s back. For them, there is no dissonance between commitment and excitement, responsibility and playfulness. They can buy a home and be naughty in it, too. They can be parents and still be lovers. In short, they’re able to seamlessly meld the ordinary and the uncanny. But for the rest of us, seeking excitement in the same relationship in which we establish permanence is a tall order. Unfortunately, too many love stories develop in such a way that we sacrifice passion so as to achieve stability. So What Is It I Want? Adele comes into my office holding half a sandwich in one hand and some paperwork she’s doing on the fly in the other. At thirty-eight, she is a well-established lawyer in private practice. She’s been married to Alan for seven years. It is a second marriage for both of them, and they have a daughter, Emilia, who’s five. Adele is dressed simply and elegantly, though she’s been meaning to get to the hairdresser for a while now and it shows. “I want to get right to it,” she says. “Eighty percent of the time I’m happy with him. I’m really happy.” Not a minute to waste for this organized and accomplished woman. “He doesn’t say certain things; he doesn’t gush; but he’s a really nice guy. I pick up the newspaper, and I feel fortunate. We’re all healthy; we have enough money; our house has never caught on fire; we don’t have to dodge bullets on the way home from work.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  kitchen boy in a spellbound castle, a nut in one hand, a tool in the other, until the sound of approaching footsteps woke me up and plunged me, blinking and confused, back into time. The utility room lay just inside the front door. Utility room was Dwight’s name for it; in other houses it was called the mud room. Everyone had to step around me and the horse chestnuts when leaving or entering the house, and on their way to the bathroom. Skipper nodded soberly each time he passed. Norma gave me sympathetic looks, and sometimes stopped for a moment to make insincere offers of help. Both of them let Dwight know they thought he was overdoing it. He told them to mind their own business. I kept hoping they’d really go to bat for me, but they had other things on their minds. Skipper was customizing his car. Norma was in love with Bobby Crow, an Indian boy from Marblemount who drove up almost every night to see her. Dwight disapproved of Bobby, but Norma slipped out of the house at will, and when Dwight bestirred himself to question her she fed him fat lies that he swallowed without a murmur. I knew where she and Bobby went; they went to the village dump, a petting zoo said to be frequented by a one-handed killer who had escaped from the state asylum at Sedro Woolley. Norma told me that one night she heard a noise outside the car and made Bobby lay rubber out of there. When they got back to the house they found a bloody hook hanging on the door handle. This was a true story that Norma made me promise never to tell anyone, ever. And there were bears at the dump, rooting in garbage and rearing up now and then with cans stuck on their noses. As I worked my way through the horse chestnuts I took them up to the attic. This was a dank space where Pearl’s old dolls were strewn, their eyes kindling under the glare of the flashlight, among broken appliances and stacks of Collier’s and the washtub where the beaver lay curing in brine. Skipper and Norma got used to seeing me with the nuts, because it was about the only way they ever saw me; their bus left for Concrete before I woke up in the morning and brought them back just in time for the evening meal. They came to accept the sight as normal. Pearl never got used to it. She passed my station twenty times a night on some pretext or other, lingering nearby until, in spite of myself, I raised my head and saw her looking down at me with hard bright eyes and a little smile. Sometimes Dwight came back to check on my progress. He tried to cheer me on with visions of everyone sitting together, a year or two down the line, eating these very nuts. So I nodded away the nights over boxes of horse chestnuts, while my hands

• From Story of O (1954)

  “Here’s O,” Sir Stephen said. “You know what has to be done with her. When will she be ready?” Anne-Marie glanced at O. “You mean you haven’t told her? All right, I’ll begin immediately. You should probably allow ten days after it’s over. I imagine you’ll want to put the rings and monogram on yourself? Come back in two weeks. The whole business should be finished two weeks after that.” O started to ask a question. “Just a minute, O,” Anne-Marie said, “go into the front bedroom over there, get undressed but keep your sandals on, and come back.” The room, a large white bedroom with heavy purple Jouy print drapes, was empty. O put her bag, her gloves, and her clothes on a small chair near a closet door. There was no mirror. She went back outside and, dazzled by the bright sunlight, walked slowly back over to the shade of the beech tree. Sir Stephen was still standing in front of Anne-Marie, the dog at his feet. Anne-Marie’s black hair, streaked with gray, shone as though she had used some kind of cream on it, her blue eyes seemed black. She was dressed in white, with a patent-leather belt around her waist, and she was wearing patent-leather sandals which revealed the bright red nail polish on the toenails of her bare feet, the same color polish she was wearing on her fingernails. “O,” she said, “kneel down in front of Sir Stephen.” O obliged, her arms crossed behind her back, the tips of her breasts quivering. The dog tensed, as though he were about to spring at her. “Down, Turk,” Anne-Marie ordered. Then: “Do you consent, O, to bear the rings and the monogram with which Sir Stephen desires you to be marked, without knowing how they will be placed upon you?” “I do,” O said. “All right then, I’m going to walk Sir Stephen to his car. Stay here.” As Anne-Marie got up from her chaise longue, Sir Stephen bent down and took O’s breasts in his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and murmured: “Are you mine, O, are you really mine?” then turned and left her, to follow Anne-Marie. The gate banged shut, Anne-Marie was coming back. O, her legs folded beneath her, was sitting on her heels and had her arms on her knees, like an Egyptian statue.

• From Story of O (1954)

  “I was just going to start,” she answered, “but I got up late, took a bath, and it was noon before I was ready.” “Are you dressed?” “No, I have on my nightgown and my dressing gown.” “Put the phone down, take off your robe and your nightgown.” O obeyed, so startled that the phone slipped from the bed where she had placed it down onto the white rug, and she thought she had been cut off. No, she had not been cut off. “Are you naked?” René went on. “Yes,” she said. “But where are you calling from?” He ignored her question, merely adding: “Did you keep your ring on?” She had kept her ring on. Then he told her to remain as she was until he came home and to prepare, thus undressed, the suitcase of clothing she was to get rid of. Then he hung up. It was past one o’clock, and the weather was lovely. A small pool of sunlight fell on the rug, lighting the white nightgown and the corduroy dressing gown, pale green like the shells of fresh almonds, which O had let slip to the floor when she had taken them off. She picked them up and went to take them into the bathroom, to hang them up in a closet. On her way, she suddenly saw her reflection in one of the mirrors fastened to a door and which, together with another mirror covering part of the wall and a third on another door, formed a large three-faced mirror: all she was wearing was a pair of leather mules the same green as her dressing gown—and only slightly darker than the mules she wore at Roissy—and her ring. She was no longer wearing either a collar or leather bracelets, and she was alone, her own sole spectator. And yet never had she felt herself more totally committed to a will which was not her own, more totally a slave, and more content to be so.

• From Story of O (1954)

  After she had laid out her clothes on her bed, and at the foot of the bed her black suede shoes with raised soles and spiked heels, nothing seemed stranger to O than to see herself, solitary and free in her bathroom, meticulously making herself up and perfuming herself, after she had taken her bath, as she had done at Roissy. The cosmetics she owned were not the same as those used at Roissy. In the drawer of her dressing table she found some face rouge—she never used any—which she utilized to emphasize the halo of her breasts. It was a rouge which was scarcely visible when first applied, but which darkened later. At first she thought she had put on too much and tried to take a little off with alcohol—it was very hard to remove—and started all over: a dark peony pink flowered at the tips of her breasts. Vainly she tried to make up the lips which the fleece of her loins concealed, but the rouge left no mark. Finally, among the tubes of lipstick she had in the same drawer, she found one of those kissproof lipsticks which she did not like to use because they were too dry and too hard to remove. There, it worked. She fixed her hair and freshened her face, then finally put on the perfume. René had given her, in an atomizer which released a heavy spray, a perfume whose name she didn’t know, which had the odor of dry wood and marshy plants, a pungent, slightly savage odor. On her skin the spray melted, on the fur of the armpits and belly it ran and formed tiny droplets. At Roissy O had learned to take her time: she perfumed herself three times, each time allowing the perfume to dry. First she put on her stockings, and high heels, then the petticoat and skirt, then the jacket. She put on her gloves and took her bag. In her bag were her compact, her lipstick, a comb, her key, and ten francs. Wearing her gloves, she took her fur coat from the closet and glanced at the time at the head of her bed: quarter to eight. She sat down diagonally on the edge of the bed and, her eyes riveted to the alarm clock, waited without moving for the bell to ring. When she heard it at last and rose to leave, she noticed in the mirror above her dressing table, before turning out the light, her bold, gentle, docile expression.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  But we were lucky. We made it home, pushed the car down the drive, went to bed and caught ourselves a few hours sleep before Mr. Bolger had one of the girls come down to fetch us for breakfast. Mr. Bolger was in good humor. He had reason to be. The morning was fresh, Chuck was still free and single, and in another couple of weeks I would be on my way to California. While we feasted on ham and grits and eggs, Mr. Bolger spread a map on the table and marked our route to Seattle. Without actually saying so, he gave us to understand that this trip was a new chance to prove ourselves. We were to drive directly to Seattle and directly home. No sidetrips. No hitchhikers. No drinking. Mr. Bolger tried to be stem as he gave us our marching orders, but it was clear that he enjoyed sending us off on what he considered to be a business of some pith and moment, which it was, if not exactly in the way he imagined.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I was fond of Henry, but even he was but charmingly whimsical when it came to any matter that deserved serious attention. He was the son of a French mother and of an Italian-Jewish father; himself a British subject because his father came originally from Malta, he belonged nowhere. There was too great a diversity about him and he felt no urge to solve any particular problem. When his parents began to quarrel and finally separated, it left him free to lead an utterly airy life, without roots of any kind. I tried several times to convert him, in turn, to each one of my successive views; but politics left him cold and he slithered between my fingers, so to speak, and answered my arguments with talk about his guitar, about painting, about summer camps. In the Italian high school where he studied, Fascism discouraged, in those years, all serious thought and was producing a whole generation of lightheaded boys who actually knew nothing thoroughly, only a smattering of mathematics, of doctored history, and a lot of poetry, music, drama, and drawing. So I ended up by accepting Henry just as he was, enjoying in his presence, as if by a clear spring of water, a kind of repose that did me good. It helped me relax and I would then allow him to dream away as I listened to him grow enthusiastic about imaginary projects: miraculous fishing expeditions off the shores of Southern Tunisia, with millions to be made there, or the building of a monstrous theater in the ruins of the ancient one in Carthage. Then he would vanish for a couple of weeks and, when he reappeared to meet me at the gates of our high school, all absent-minded and with his hair ruffled, he would already have forgotten his theater project in favor of a fabulous voyage to the South Sea Isles. I was fond of Henry because life, in his company, seemed less drearily serious, and I have often wished it were indeed less serious!

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  I’ll start with number two. True communication requires knowing what you want—or what works—which can be the trickiest part. I find Emily Nagoski’s Come as You Are Workbook: A Practical Guide to the Science of Sex to be an extremely helpful tool for gaining a greater understanding of your relationship to desire, pleasure, and arousal (three very different things, by the way). For people with vulvas, Laurie Mintz’s Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters—and How to Get It is a useful resource as well. Exploring your body outside of partnered contexts is typically where the discoveries happen, when there’s no one else to please or perform for. That’s part of the reason why developing a masturbation practice is so rewarding; in what other context would you feel comfortable enough to insert a vibrating butt plug for the first time? In front of an audience? Maybe you’re into that kind of thing. But maybe not. If you find you love the butt plug—which I think you will—you can then relay this information to partners. And this principle transcends butt plugs. Other insights you might only learn alone could be, “I can only come when fingers circle around my clit counterclockwise,” or “I think it would be hot if you pretended to be the mailman,” or “I’d prefer if you stopped pretending to be the mailman, I don’t understand the scene.” As for Rebecca’s first concern—that communicating during sex ruins the mood—she corrected herself a few hours after we spoke, sending me a video she’d filmed of her laptop screen: Samantha from Sex and the City is naked and sitting on a naked man. She gently instructs him how to stimulate her clit, interspersed with breathy sounds of pleasure and physical reinforcement. “Now put your index finger on my clit … Good … little less pressure … Ooohkay now two fingers.” She grabs his head and kisses him on the lips. “A little higher … A little bit more to the left…” “Well, Samantha makes communicating during sex look sexy,” Rebecca texted. Rebecca’s reluctance to communicate multiple times during sex came from a fear it would disrupt the flow and be too much trouble. In this brief clip, Samantha communicated six instructions, and the scene was still hot, sexy, flowy. So what should we be talking about during sex? Well, all the things Samantha said, things like “faster,” “slower,” “harder,” “counterclockwise,” “just like that,” but also things like “I’m tired,” “Do you like that?” “I have to pee.” Once we’ve done the work to figure out the kind of touch we love, we owe it to ourselves to bring that to partnered sex, and to seek out sexual situations—casual or otherwise—where we feel safe enough to communicate.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Generally, we reached the old gateway long before school-time. We enjoyed the freedom of chatting together before being locked up for three hours within those mouse-grey walls. Besides, we met there all the quick-getaway hucksters who offered us all sorts of cheap dainties. They had learned, from long experience, to classify schools according to the purchasing power of the pupils. We certainly came last but one on their list, only just ahead of the other school of the Alliance that was situated in the heart of the ghetto and where the midday meal and even the clothes of the pupils were distributed free. That is why all these little tradesmen used to bring us whatever they had failed to sell at the gates of the other schools. In October, for instance, the small green apples that had fallen too soon from the tree and had been dipped in a sugar solution with red coloring. We licked the taffy crust until we reached the actual fruit, ate the fruit too, but pulled hideous faces as we did it, with our teeth on edge and our eyes grown dim. I had discovered that if one bit the taffy apple without first licking it the bitterness of the fruit was reduced by the sugar. But then I ate it all so fast that the pleasure was over before I had really experienced it. In spring, the fruit that was sold to us was already full of sunlight: yellow arbutus berries, the less expensive ones still greenish, big as marbles and all kernel, sharp to the taste and giving us belly-aches; the better fruit was of a fine golden yellow or bright red and tasted and smelled exquisitely sweet. Under the pressure of necessity, some of us had even learned to like the cheaper arbutus berries and to claim that they preferred them to the riper ones. To my great surprise, they chose those that were most green and most acid. But I never reached that stage, though some of my schoolmates may actually have been fortunate enough to like the green berries. Toward the same time of year, we were also offered the jujube fruits, small wild berries that were shiny as beads of brown marble or all wrinkled like the cheeks of an old woman, and much more attractive to look at than good to eat. Later, there were also oranges and dates, especially the big yellow dates that have an astringent effect on the mouth, leaving it all dry and resistant to any liquid.