Desire

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 The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: “honey-colored skin,” “thin arms,” “brown bobbed hair,” “long lashes,” “big bright mouth”); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita). Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior. Her parents were old friends of my aunt’s, and as stuffy as she. They had rented a villa not far from Hotel Mirana. Bald brown Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (born Vanessa van Ness). How I loathed them! At first, Annabel and I talked of peripheral affairs. She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and letting it pour through her fingers. Our brains were turned the way those of intelligent European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt if much individual genius should be assigned to our interest in the plurality of inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy. All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do. After one wild attempt we made to meet at night in her garden (of which more later), the only privacy we were allowed was to be out of earshot but not out of sight on the populous part of the plage . There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other’s salty lips; these incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  And even as Ismenus and Asopus saw of old a fury and a rout along their banks by night, if but the Thebans had need of Bacchus, 13 suchwise, along that circle, quickening their pace, were coming, by what I saw of them, those whom good will and just love bestride. Soon were they upon us, because all that great throng was moving at a run; and two in front were shouting in tears: “Mary ran with haste to the hill country,” 14 and “Cæsar to subdue Ilerda, stabbed Marseilles and then raced to Spain.” 15 “Haste! Haste! let no time be lost through little love,” cried the others afterwards, “that striving to do well may renew grace.” “O people in whom keen fervour now perchance doth make good negligence and delay used by you through lukewarmness in well- doing, this one who lives, and surely I lie not to you, desires to ascend, if but the sun shine to us again; therefore tell us where the opening is near.” These were my Leader’s words; and one of those spirits said: “Come behind us, and thou shalt find the cleft. We are so filled with desire to speed us, that stay we cannot; therefore forgive, if thou hold our penance for rudeness. I was Abbot of San Zeno at Verona, 16 under the rule of the good Barbarossa, of whom Milan yet discourses with sorrow. And one I know has already a foot in the grave, who soon shall mourn because of that monastery, and sad will be for having had power there; because his son, deformed in his whole body and worse in mind, and who was born in shame, he has put there in place of its true shepherd.” If more he said, or if he was silent, I know not, so far already had he raced beyond us; but this I heard and was pleased to retain. And he who was my succour in every need, said: “Turn thee hither, see two of them that come biting at sloth.” Last of them all they said: “The people for whom the sea opened, were dead ere Jordan saw its heirs”; 17 and: “That folk who endured not the toil to the end with Anchises’ son, gave them up to a life inglorious.” 18 Then, when those shades were so far parted from us, that they could be seen no more, a new thought was set within me, wherefrom many and divers others sprang; and so from one to another I rambled, that I closed mine eyes for very wandering, and thought I transmuted into dream. 1. The apprehensive faculty receives the impression (intenzione) of the concrete thing, form and material alike (see intention, Par. xxiv, note 8, for this word with a different sense).

• From Querelle (1953)

  That glance, quick as it was, Querelle caught it. His smile broadened, and in shifting his feet, he performed a quick, seductive "bump." ccso you don't really like working here, eh?" Haying found himself unable to resist such a trite explanation and wording, the officer experienced yet another surge of selfloathing and blushed to observe Querelle's black nostrils quiver delicately and the pretty middle part of his upper lip join in with more rapid and more subtle tremors-clearly a most delightful outward sign of great eff_orts to restrain a smile. "But no, I do like it. But I was down there to help out a buddy. Colas, in fact." "He could have picked someone else to replace him. You're in a pretty incredible state. Do you really like breathing coal dust all that much?" "No, but . . . But then, well, for me . . . " "What's that? What do you want to say?" Querelle let his smile shine bright. He said : "Oh, nothing." That nailed the officer's feet to the floor. It only needed a word, a simple order, to send Querelle to the showers. For a few moments they remained very ill at ease, both of them in a state of suspense. It was Querelle who brought matters to a close. "Is that all, sir?" "Yes, that's all. Why ask?" "Oh, no reason." The Lieutenant thought he detected a hint of impertinence in the sailor's question, and in his answer as well, both delivered 87 I QUERELLE in the sunshine of a blinding smile. His dignity prompted him to dismiss Querelle on the spot, but he could not muster the strength to do that. If bad luck would have Querelle deCide to go back do\vn to the coal bunkers again, he thought, his lover would certainly follow him there . . . The half-naked seaman's presence in his cabin was driving him out of his mind. Already he was heading on down to hell, descending the black marble staircase, almost to those depths into which the news of Vic's murder had plunged him earlier. He wanted to engage Querelle in that sumptuous adventure. He wanted him to play his part in it. \Vhat secret thought, what startling confession, what dazzling display of light was concealed under those bellbottoms, blacker now than any pair ever known to man? \Vhat shadowy penis hung there, its stem rooted in pale moss? And what was the substance covering all these things? Well, certainly nothing but a little coal dust-familiar enough, in name and consistency; that simple ordinary stuff, so capable of making a face, a pair of hands, appear coarse and dirty-yet it invested this young blond sailorboy with all the mysterious powers of a faun, of a heathen idol, of a volcano, of a Melanesian archipelago. He was himself, yet he was so no longer.

• From Querelle (1953)

  She moved in for another kiss. Things began to stir in Robert. Gently, and providing him with the reassurance that all the treasures of the room were sti11 his to use, the temperature rose in his dong. Never again-that is to say, until he camewould anything be able to remind him that he had once been a lazy and skinny docker, bored with his job, and that he might well become one again. Forever now he was a king, a Caesar, well nourished and clad in a coronation robe, in the vestments of power that is calm and certain, thus differing from the conqueror's breeches. He had a hard-on. Feeling the touch of his hard and vibrant member, Lysiane gave her blonde flesh the order to quiver. "You're so wonderfull" She was waiting for the preliminaries of the real work, from the moment Robert slipped under the covers and started nuzzling around like a truffie-pig in the rich-smelling, dark and 182 I JEAN GENET nocturnal earth, parted her short hairs and started tickling her with the' tip of his tongue. She always wished for this moment, without particularly wanting to think about it. She wanted to remain pure, to remain a hove the women she had under her command. Altho.ugh she encouraged them to work on perversions, she could not admit any indulgence in such on her part. She had t.o remain normal. Her big and heavy thighs were her moral arbiters. She hated the instability of immorality and licentiousness. The knowledge of having such beautiful thighs and buttocks gave her a feeling of strength . They were her citadel. The word we'll use here did not shock her sensibility any longer, she had r�peated it so often to herself, ever since she heard a docker make use of it: her "prose.'' Her sense of responsibility and her self-confidence were firmly 'anchored in the depths of her "prose." She clung to Robert who turned his body toward her a few degrees and gently, simply, without helping it along with his hand, put his prick in. Madame Lysiane sighed. She smiled, offering up the velvety night full of stars that extended throughout all of her insides right up to her mouth, as well as her white and pearly skin with its blue veins. She gave herself as usual, yet she was aware-for several days, but particularly that evening-of the pain that the great similarity of the two brothers had begun to cause her. While this worry prevented her from being a happy lover, she still managed a very beautiful flourish of her ann as she swung it up and outward from under the sheet, to put out the light. , You are alone in the world, at night, in the solitude of an end-Jess esplanade. Your double statue reflects itself in each one of its halves. You are solitaries, and live in that double solitude of yours. 0 0 0 183 I QUERELLE

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  Her hands caressed my buttocks. She pinched the welts. She spread my buttocks apart, and as this hot sheathing tightened on my penis, as the roughness of her pubic hair stroked me and tantalized me, she put her fingers into my anus. "'My Prince, my Prince, you pass all tests for me,' she whispered. Her movements grew swifter, wilder. I saw her face and breasts suffused with scarlet. 'Now.' She commanded, and I pumped my passion into her. "I rocked with the pumping of it, my hips snapping as wildly as they had in the little circus performance. And when I was emptied and quiet, I lay covering her face and her breast with languid and sleepy kisses. "She sat up in bed, and ran her hands all over me. She told me I was her loveliest possession. 'But there are many cruelties in store for you,' she said. I felt myself grow hard again. She said I should be subjected to a daily discipline far worse than any she had before invented. "'I love you, my Queen,' I whispered. And had no though other than serving her. Yet of course I was afraid. Though I felt powerful in all I had endured and accomplished. "'Tomorrow,' she said, 'I go to review my armies. I must ride before them in an open coach, as much so they can see their Queen as I can see them, and after that I must proceed through the villages nearest the castle. "'All the Court rides with me according to rank. And all the slaves, naked, and collared in leather, march on foot with us. You shall march at the side of my carriage for all eyes to see. I shall have the finest collar for you, and your anus shall be opened with a leather phallus. You shall wear a bit in your mouth, and I shall hold the bridle. You will hold your head high before the soldiers, officers, the common people. And for the pleasure of the people, I shall have you displayed in the villages in the main square long enough for all to admire before we continue the procession.' "'Yes, my Queen,' I answered silently. I knew it would be a terrible ordeal, and yet I was thinking of it with curiosity, and wondering when and how my feeling of helplessness and yielding would visit me. Would it come before the villagers, or the soldiers, or when I trotted along with my head held high, my anus tortured by this phallus. Each detail she had described excited me. "I slept deeply and well. When Leon awakened me, he groomed me as carefully as he had for the little circus. "There was a huge commotion outside the castle. It was the first time I had seen the front gates of the courtyard, the drawbridge and moat and all the soldiers assembled.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  She could see him clearly now. He was older than the Page boys, but just as fair, and his hazel eyes were very appealing in their gentleness. He told her to keep her hands behind her neck and that he was going to give her a thorough cleansing and that she must enjoy it. "Are you very tired?" he asked her. "Not so tired, my..." "My Lord will do," he said with a smile. "Even the lowliest stable boy is your Lord, Beauty," he said, "and you must always answer respectfully." "Yes, my Lord," she whispered. He was already bathing her, and the warm water washing down her did fell very good to her. He lathered her neck and arms. "Have you just awakened?" "Yes, my Lord," she said. "I see, but you must be tired from your long journey. The first few days slaves are always overexcited. They don't feel their exhaustion, and then after that they begin to sleep for many hours. You'll feel it soon, and there will be an aching in your arms and legs, too. I don't mean from your punishment. I mean only from your fatigue. When that happens I'll massage you and soothe you." His voice was so gentle that Beauty warmed to him at once. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows and there was golden hair on his arms, and his fingers were very sure as he washed her ears and her face, careful not to get the soap in her eyes. "And you have been punished very severely, haven't you?" Beauty blushed. He laughed softly. "Very good, my dear, you are learning already. Never answer such a question as that. It could be taken as a complaint if you did. Any time you are asked if you have been punished too much or suffered too much, or anything of that sort, be clever enough to blush." But even as he spoke almost affectionately, he began washing her breasts just as calmly as he had washed the rest of her, and Beauty's blushes became more painful. She could feel her nipples harden, and she was certain though she could see nothing but the soapy water before her, that he was noticing this, as his hands slowed slightly, and then he pushed at her inner thigh gently. "Spread your legs, dearest," he said. She obeyed, kneeling with her legs farther apart, and then farther as he pushed her. He had become still, and now drying his hand on the towel at his waist, he touched her sex and she felt herself shudder. Her sex was moist and swollen with her desire, and to her horror, his had touched a small hard knot in which much of her craving was accumulated. She drew back involuntarily. "Ah." He withdrew his fingers, and turning called to Lord Gregory. "A very lovely flower, this," he said. "Have you observed?" Beauty was crimson.

• From Querelle (1953)

  140 I JEAN GENET the brawl . It wasn't shame, r a t he r a vague notion that the kid wasn't to be trusted . Querelle knew that he had achieved a c er tai n notoriety in this city of Brest. Nigh t, facing the sea. Neither the sea nor the night can bring me peace of mind. On the contrary. It's enough for the shadow of a sailor to move past ... In that shadow, and thanks to it, he can't help being anything but beautiful. Between its Banks this ship holds such delicious brutes, clad in white and azur e. Whom to choose, from among these males? I could hardly let go of one before desir ing anot her. The only reassuring though t: that there is only one sailor , the sailor. And each individual I see is merely the mome ntary repre senta tion-fragm entary as well, and diminished in scale-of The Sailor. He has all the char acter is tics: vigor, toughn ess, beauty , cruelt y, etc.-all but one: multi plicity. Each sailor passing by may thus he compared to Him . Even if all sailors were to appear in front of me, alive and pres ent, all of them-not one of them, separa tely, could he the sailor the y jointly compose, who can only exist in my imagination, who can only live in me, and for me. This idea sets my mind at rest. I have Him, The Sailor. It was with pleasure that I signed the order for Que relle's pun ishme nt. In any case, he won't have to appear before the Navy Tribunal. I want him to owe me that, and to know that he owes it to me. He smiled at me . All of a sudden I was struck by the horrible nature of the expressi on: ccHe's still alive"-when used apropos a wou nded man, say, mortally wound ed, agitated by a spasm . Querelle to his mates: "Bit of a breeze !" or: "It's blowin' up a gale!' ' And then he himself moves forwa rd, full of hims elf, and sure, like a sailing ship.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "You were sent here in Tribute by your father." "As your mother demanded, your Highness." "And to serve how many years?" "As long as it pleases your Highness, and my mistress, the Queen," Prince Alexi answered. "And you are what? Nineteen? And a model among the other Tributes?" Prince Alexi blushed. The Prince turned him towards Beauty with a rough blow on the shoulder, and steered him towards the bed. Beauty drew herself up, feeling her face flushed warm. "And the favorite of my mother?" the Prince demanded. "Not tonight, your Highness," Prince Alexi said with the barest trace of a smile. The Prince acknowledged this with a soft laugh. "No, you have not comported yourself very well today, have you?" "I can only beg forgiveness, your Highness," said Prince Alexi. "You can do more than that," said the Prince into his ear as he pushed him nearer to Beauty. "You can suffer for it. And you can give my Beauty a lesson in willingness and perfect submission." Now the Prince turned his gaze on Beauty, scrutinizing her mercilessly. She looked down, terrified of displeasing him. "Look at Prince Alexi," he told her, and when she raised her eyes, she saw the beautiful captive Prince only a few inches from her. His disheveled hair partially veiled his face, and his skin appeared deliciously smooth to her. She was trembling. Just as she feared he would, the Prince lifted Prince Alexi's chin again, and when Prince Alexi looked at her with his large brown eyes, he smiled very slowly and serenely at her for an instant the Prince could not have witnessed. Beauty drank her fill of him with her eyes because she had no choice and hoped the Prince would see no more than her distress. "Kiss my new slave and welcome her to this house. Kiss her lips and her breasts," said the Prince. And he lifted Prince Alexi's hands from the back of his neck so they went silently and obediently to his sides. Beauty gasped. Prince Alexi was smiling at her again, secretly as his shadow fell over her, and she felt his lips close over hers and the shock of his kiss pass through her. She could feel that misery between her legs formed into a tight know, and when his lips touched her left breast and then the right, she bit into her lower lip so hard she might have drawn blood. Prince Alexi's hair stroked her cheek and her breasts as he carried out the command and then he stood back with that same beguiling equanimity. Beauty put her hands to her face before she could stop herself. But immediately the Prince took them away. "Look well, Beauty. Study this example of the obedient slave.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  She was still at the telephone, haggling with her mother (wanted to be fetched by car, my little Carmen) when, singing louder and louder, I swept up the stairs and set a deluge of steaming water roaring into the tub. At this point I may as well give the words of that song hit in full—to the best of my recollection at least—I don’t think I ever had it right. Here goes: O my Carmen, my little Carmen! Something, something those something nights, And the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen— And, O my charmin’, our dreadful fights. And the something town where so gaily, arm in Arm, we went, and our final row, And the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen, The gun I am holding now. ( Drew his .32 automatic, I guess, and put a bullet through his moll’s eye.) 14 I had lunch in town—had not been so hungry for years. The house was still Lo-less when I strolled back. I spent the afternoon musing, scheming, blissfully digesting my experience of the morning. I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm done. The conjurer had poured milk, molasses, foaming champagne into a young lady’s new white purse; and lo, the purse was intact. Thus had I delicately constructed my ignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe—and I was safe. What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita—perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness—indeed, no life of her own. The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her. And nothing prevented me from repeating a performance that affected her as little as if she were a photographic image rippling upon a screen and I a humble hunchback abusing myself in the dark. The afternoon drifted on and on, in ripe silence, and the sappy tall trees seemed to be in the know; and desire, even stronger than before, began to afflict me again. Let her come soon, I prayed, addressing a loan God, and while mamma is in the kitchen, let a repetition of the davenport scene be staged, please, I adore her so horribly. No: “horribly” is the wrong word. The elation with which the vision of new delights filled me was not horrible but pathetic. I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic—because despite the insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child. And now see how I was repaid for my pains.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Everything was fine. There, in the lobby, she sat, deep in an overstuffed blood-red armchair, deep in a lurid movie magazine. A fellow of my age in tweeds (the genre of the place had changed overnight to a spurious country-squire atmosphere) was staring at my Lolita over his dead cigar and stale newspaper. She wore her professional white socks and saddle oxfords, and that bright print frock with the square throat; a splash of jaded lamplight brought out the golden down on her warm brown limbs. There she sat, her legs carelessly highcrossed, and her pale eyes skimming along the lines with every now and then a blink. Bill’s wife had worshiped him from afar long before they ever met: in fact, she used to secretly admire the famous young actor as he ate sundaes in Schwab’s drugstore. Nothing could have been more childish than her snubbed nose, freckled face or the purplish spot on her naked neck where a fairytale vampire had feasted, or the unconscious movement of her tongue exploring a touch of rosy rash around her swollen lips; nothing could be more harmless than to read about Jill, an energetic starlet who made her own clothes and was a student of serious literature; nothing could be more innocent than the part in that glossy brown hair with that silky sheen on the temple; nothing could be more naïve—But what sickening envy the lecherous fellow whoever he was—come to think of it, he resembled a little my Swiss uncle Gustave, also a great admirer of le découvert—would have experienced had he known that every nerve in me was still anointed and ringed with the feel of her body—the body of some immortal daemon disguised as a female child.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "You are sweet, sweet as Lady Juliana told me you were," she said softly in Beauty's ear. Beauty bit her lip. "Your Highness..." she whispered, but she did not know what to say. "My son has trained you well, and you show great perception." The Queen's hand plunged down between Beauty's legs and felt the sex which had never grown cold or dry during all of the worst of the spanking, and Beauty shut her eyes. "Ah, now why are you so afraid of my hand when it touches you gently?" And the Queen bent and kissed Beauty's tears, tasting them on Beauty's cheeks and on her eyelids. "Sugar and salt," she said. Beauty broke into a fresh shower of sobs. The hand between her legs massaged the most moist portion of her, and she knew that her face was flushed, and the pain and the pleasure mingled. She felt overpowered. Her head fell back against the Queen's shoulder, and her mouth went slack, and she realized the Queen was kissing her throat, and she murmured some strange words that were not words to the Queen, some plea. "Poor little slave," said the Queen, "poor little obedient slave. I wanted to send you home to get rid of you, to rid my son of his passion for you, my son who is now as enchanted as you were before, under the spell of the one whom he released from the spell, as if all life were a series of enchantments. But you are as perfect in temperament as he said you were, as perfect as more trained slaves, and yet you are fresher, sweeter." Beauty gasped as the pleasure between her legs washed through her, mounting and mounting. She felt her swollen breasts might burst, and her buttocks, as always, throbbed so that she felt every inch of the abraded flesh relentlessly. "Now, come, did I spank you so very hard, tell me?" She took Beauty by the chin and turned her so that Beauty looked into her eyes. They were huge and black and fathomless. The lashes curled upwards, and there seemed a great casing of glass over the eyes, so deep they were, so brilliant. "Well, answer me," said the Queen with her red lips, and she placed her finger in Beauty's mouth and tugged on her lower lip. "Answer me." "It was...hard...hard, my Queen..." Beauty said meekly. "Well, yes, perhaps for such fresh little buttocks. But you make Prince Alexi smile with your innocence." Beauty turned as if bidden to do so but when she gazed at Prince Alexi she did not see him smiling. Rather he was merely looking at her with the strangest expression. It was both remote and loving. And then he looked to the Queen without haste or fear and let his lips lengthen in a smile as she seemed to wish of him. But the Queen had tipped back Beauty's head again.

• From Querelle (1953)

  The happiness of clasping in my arms a body so beautiful, even though it is huge and strong! Huger and stronger than mine. lS I QUERELLE 0 0 0 Reverie. Is this him? ''He'' goes ashore every night. When he comes back, "His" bell-bottom pants-which are wide, and cover his shoes, contrary to regulations-look bespattered, perhaps with jism mixed with the dust of the streets he has been sweeping with their frayed bottoms. His pants, they're the dirtiest sailor's pants fve ever seen. Were I to demand an explanation from "Him," "He" would smile as he chucked his beret behind him: "That, that's just from all the suckers going down on me. While they're giving me a blowjob, they come all over my jeans. That's just their spunk. That's all." "He" would appear to be very proud of it. "He" wears those stains with a glorious impudence: they are his medals. 'While it is the least elegant of the brothels in Brest, where no men of the Battle Fleet ever go to give it a little of their grace and freshness, La Feria certainly is the most renowned. It is a solemn gold and purple cave providing for the colonials, the boys of the Merchant Navy and the tramp steamers, and the longshoremen. 'Whereas the sailors visit to have a "piece" or a "short time,'' the dock workers and others say: ''Let's go shoot our wads." At night, La Feria also provides the imagination with .the thrills of scintillating criminality. One may always suspect three or four hoodlums lurking in the fog-shrouded pissoir erected on the sidewalk across the street. Sometimes the front door stands ajar, and from it issue the airs of a player piano, blue strains, serpentines of music unrolling in the dark shadows, curling round the wrists and necks of the workmen who just happen to be walking past. But daylight allows a more detailed view of the dirty, blind, gray and shame-ravaged shack it is. Seen only by the light of its lantern and its lo\vered Venetian blinds, it could well be overflowing with the hot 26 I JEAN GENET

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  Her hips rose and fell; it was clear she could not control her own movement. She begged to be allowed peace, and just as her face flushed and it seemed she could not control herself, she was let alone, legs held apart so that she groaned miserably. Another very lovely girl was being spanked and stroked at the same time by a Page who used his left hand between her legs to work her. And to Beauty's horror several were mounted on phalluses against the wall on which they worked themselves with wild contortions while the Pages in attendance wielded merciless paddles. "You see each slave receives simple instructions. She is to work herself on the phallus until she achieves satisfaction. Only then will the paddling cease, no matter how sore she is. She soon learns to think of the paddle and pleasure as one in the same, and soon learns to achieve her pleasure in spite of the paddle. Or on command, I should say. Of course she shall seldom be allowed such satisfaction by her masters and mistresses." Beauty gazed at the row of struggling bodies. The girls' hands were bound over their heads, their feet below. They had little room for moving on the leather phalluses. They twisted, trying to undulate as best they could, the inevitable tears spilling down their faces. Beauty felt pity for them, yet she so craved the phallus. She knew with deep shame it would not have taken her long to please the Page paddling her. As she watched the nearest Princess, a girl with red ringlets, she saw her finally achieve her goal, her face blood red, her whole body gone to violent quivering. The Page spanked her all the harder. She went limp finally as though too weary to feel shame, and the Page gave her a gentle approving pat and left her. Everywhere Beauty looked she saw some form of training. Here a young girl with hands clasped above her head was being taught to kneel still while her private parts were stroked and not to put her hands down to cover herself. Another was being forced to feed her breasts to the Page who suckled them, holding them for him while yet another examined her. Lessons in control, lessons in pain and pleasure. The voices of the Pages were some of them stern, some of them tender, the dull whacking of the paddle everywhere. And there were the inevitable spread-eagled girls being now and then tormented to awaken them and teach them what they could feel if they did not know it. "But for our little Beauty such lessons are not necessary," Lord Gregory said. "She is too accomplished as it is. And perhaps she should see the Hall of Punishments, how those disobedient slaves are chastised using the very pleasure they have learned to feel here."

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  At once Prince Alexi was brought in. Beauty tried not to admire him. He was naked as before, of course, she'd expected no less, and in the light of the fire she could see that his face was flushed, and his auburn hair hung loose in his eyes which were cast down as if he dared not lift them to the Prince. They were of about the same age, surely, and about the same height, but here stood the darker Prince Alexi quite helpless and humble before the Prince who was striding back and forth before the fire, his face cold and merciless and slightly agitated. Prince Alexi's organ was rigid. He held his hands behind his neck. "So you were not ready for me!" the Prince whispered. He drew closer, inspecting Prince Alexi. He looked at the stiffened organ and then with his hand he gave it a rough slap, so that Prince Alexi flinched in spite of himself. "Perhaps you need a little training in being...always...ready," whispered the Prince. His words came slowly and with a deliberate courtesy. He lifted Prince Alexi's chin and looked into his eyes. Beauty caught herself staring at them both without the slightest shyness. "My apologies, your Highness," Prince Alexi said, and his voice was low in timbre, calm, without rebellion or shame. The Prince's lips spread slowly in a smile. Prince Alexi's eyes were larger, and they possessed the same calm as the voice. It seemed to Beauty they might even drain away the Prince's anger but this was impossible. The Prince stroked Prince Alexi's organ and gave it another playful slap, and then another. The submissive Prince looked down again and there was nothing in him but the grace and dignity Beauty had witnessed before. "I must behave like this," she thought. "I must have this manner, this strength, to bear it all with the same dignity." Yet she marveled. The captive Prince must at all times show his desire, his fascination, while she could conceal this craving between her legs, and she could not stop herself from wincing as she saw the Prince pinch the tiny hardened nipples on Prince Alexi's chest, and then lift Prince Alexi's chin again to inspect his face. Beyond them, Squire Felix watched all with obvious pleasure. He had folded his arms, his legs rather wide apart as he stood, and his eyes moved hungrily over Prince Alexi's body. "How long have you been in the service of my mother?" the Prince demanded. "Two years, your Highness," said the humble Prince softly. Beauty was quite astonished. Two years! It seemed to her all of her life before had not been so long, but she was more rapt with the sound of his voice than with the words. The voice made him seem more palpable and visible. His body was a little thicker than that of the Prince, and the dark brown hair between his legs was beautiful.

• From Querelle (1953)

  69 I QUERELLE the bald and shiny top of his head, the powerful arch of his body. When Norbert looked up again, he confronted Querelle with a face both fleshy and bony, heavy-jowled and broken nosed. Everything about the man, in his forties, gave an impres sion of brutal vigor. The head belonged to a wrestler's body, hairy, tattooed perhaps, most certainly odorous. "Capital pun ishment, for sure." "Now then. What's your game? What do you want with the Madam? Tell me." Querelle discarded his grin in order to appear to smile ex pressly at this question and to wrap up his answer in another smile which this question alone could have provoked-and which this smile alone would succeed in rendering inoffensive. And so, he laughed out loud as he replied, with a free and easy shake of the head and in a tone of voice designed to make it impossible for Nono to take �mbrage: "I like her." From that moment on Norbert found all the details of Querelle's face totally enchanting. This wasn't the first time a well-b uilt lad had asked for the Madam in order to sleep with the brothelkeeper. One thing intrigued him: which one would get to bugger the other? "All right." He pulled out a die from his waistcoat pocket. "You go? I go?" "Go ahead." Norbert bent down and threw the die on the floor. He rolled a five. Querelle took the die. He felt certain of his skill. Nono's well-trained eye noticed that Querelle was going to cheat, but before he could intervene the number "two" was sung out by the sailor, almost triumphantly. For a moment Norbert re mained undecided. Was he dealing with some kind of joker? At first he had thought that Querelle was really after his own brother's mistress. This fraudulent trick had proved that was not so. Nor did the guy look like a fruit. Perturbed all the same,

• From Querelle (1953)

  89 I QUERELLE ··non't know, sir. I'm at your service. But, well, the buddies are a hand short, down below.'' The officer engaged in some quick thinking. To send Querelle to the shower would be to destroy the most beautiful object his eyes had ever been given to caress. As the seaman would be back again the next day, to be close beside him, it would be better to leave him covered with that black stuff. And sometime during the day he might find an occasion for going below to the bunkers, and there he might surprise this giant morsel of darkness at its flagrant amorous activities. "All right, then. Get going." "Very good, Lieutenant. I'll be back tomorrow." Querelle saluted and turned on his heel. With the anguish of a shipwrecked man watching island shores recede, and yet delighted with the casual tenor of complicity in Querelle's parting words-tender as the first use of a nickname-the officer saw those ravishingly neat buttocks, that chest, those shoulders and that neck draw away from him, irrevocably, yet not so far that he wouldn't be able to recall them with innu merable and invisible outstretched hands, enfolding those trea sures and guarding them with the tenderest solicitude. Querelle went back to his coaling, as was his habit now, after murders. If on the first occasion he had thought that he would thus escape recognition by possible witnesses, at subsequent times he simply remembered the feeling of astounding power and security that that black powder, covering him from head to toe, had given hi m, and thus he sought it out again. His strength lay in his beauty and in his daring to still add to that beauty the appear anc e of cruelty inherent in masks; he was strong-and so invisible and calm, crouching in the shadow of his power, in the remotest corner of himself-strong, because he was menacing, yet knew himself to be so gentle; he was strong, a black savage, born into a tribe in which murder ennobled a man. "And besides, hell, I've got all that jewelry!" Qucrellc knew that the possession of certain wealth-gold,

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Then carrying to and fro the top, as if it were the tongue that spake, threw forth a voice, and said: “When I departed from Circe, who beyond a year detained me there near Gaeta, 7 ere Æneas thus had named it, neither fondness for my son, nor reverence for my aged father, nor the due love that should have cheered Penelope, 8 could conquer in me the ardour that I had to gain experience of the world, and of human vice and worth; I put forth on the deep open sea, 9 with but one ship, and with that small company, which had not deserted me. Both the shores I saw as far as Spain, far as Morocco and saw Sardinia and the other isles which that sea bathes round. I and my companions were old and tardy, when we came to that narrow pass, where Hercules assigned his landmarks to hinder man from venturing farther; on the right hand, I left Seville; on the other, had already left Ceuta. ‘O brothers!’ I said, ‘who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the West, deny not, to this the brief vigil of your senses that remains, experience of the unpeopled world behind the Sun.

• From Querelle (1953)

  he would respond to the officer's call by swaggering up in an even more outrageous manner, hands in pockets pulling the material of his pants tight over his prick and balls, sticking out his belly. The Lieutenant went almost crazy, not daring to get angry, not daring to complain, nor to burst out into passionate praise of Querelle's attractions. The most striking_ memory Seblon had of him-and it was one he often recalled-was a time in Alexandria, Egypt� one blazing noon when the crewman showed up at the foot of the ship's gangway. Qqerelle was smiling, a dazzling, silent smile that showed all his teeth. At that time his face was bronzed, or 'rather, tanned a golden color, as is mostly the case with blonds. In some Ar�b garden he had broken off five or six branches of a mandarin tree, laden with fruit, and, as he liked to keep his hands free, to be able to swing his arms and roll his shoulders while walking, he had stuck them into the V-neck of his short white jacket, behind the regula_tion black satin cravat, their tips now tickling his chin. For the Lieutenant, that visual detail triggered a sudden and intimate revelation of Querelle. The foliage bursting forth from the jacket was, no doubt, what grew on the sailor's wide chest instead of any common hair, and perhaps there were-hanging from each intimate and precious little twig-some radiant balls, hard and gentle at the same time . . . For a second Querelle remained stock-stili at the top of the gangway, before setting foot on the metallic and burning hot deck, and then he moved on toward his mates. Most of the ship's crew were still ashore. Those aboard were lounging about in the shade of a tarpaulin. One of them yelled : "Wow, look at that! What a lazy sonofabitch! Or is it that he wouldn't dare be seen carrying them." "Well, would you? It would look like I was on my way to my own wedding." Carefully, Querelle pulled out the branches, which were catching on his striped T-shirt and on the black satin cravat. He kept smiling. 134 I JEAN GENET "Where'd you find 'em?" "In a garden. Just walked in." Though Querelle's murders surrounded him with a kind of charmed, tall hedge, this sometimes seemed to shrink, down to the dimensions of a low metal wire border round a flower bed.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  However, in my rush and worry, I charged pretty much everybody’s motel rooms to my brand-new American Express card. It’s a sum I can’t possibly pay. I remember the fatigue in Reverend Abernathy’s voice and realize that movement survival over the long term means saying what you need. I also discover the final stage of bill collecting when a messenger comes to my door and confiscates my card. Friends are worried on my behalf, but I am improbably fine. After all, bill collectors were a feature of my childhood. I realize once again: I am my father’s daughter. —THE ONLY REASON I joined that march was that a few weeks earlier a college classmate had asked me if Marion Moses, a nurse for the farmworkers’ union, could sleep on my couch. Marion was coming to New York to organize a consumer boycott—indeed, with orders from Cesar to stop shipments of California grapes to the entire East Coast—yet she had only a small allowance for meals and no place to stay. I said yes. I had no idea I was about to be organized—for life. Right away Marion’s sense of urgency was contagious. Two farmworkers with the union had been “accidentally” run over in the fields, she explained, and two local California sheriffs had refused to investigate. I found myself calling them, explaining that I was a reporter, and asking if federal marshals had arrived yet. Of course, no marshals were on the way. The ones who had ushered black children into newly desegregated schools in the South had acted only on orders from President Kennedy. Now President Nixon was supporting growers by ordering tons of grapes to be shipped to troops in Vietnam. Still, Marion and I hoped that the mere mention of federal marshals might make the sheriffs do their job. No such luck. I got such responses as “No, this isn’t a Communist country yet !” Marion then asked if I would join her picket line outside a New York supermarket where grapes were sold. I was working as a writer and volunteering in political campaigns, but I had never spoken in public, much less shouted on a picket line. I felt like an idiot. I had to explain to skeptical New Yorkers that no, I wasn’t a farmworker, I was a customer who didn’t want to eat food that had been picked in poverty. As we passed out flyers about low wages, dangerous pesticides, and unsanitary working conditions in the fields, supermarket bag boys were sent out to harass us with taunts like “Honey, I’d like to press your grapes!” Only when Dolores Huerta, Cesar’s chief negotiator, came to New York did I see that picketing was an art, like street theater. She persuaded dignified passersby not only to stop and hear her story but also to chant with us, “Viva la huelga! Long live our strike!” Soon, George Catalan, an elderly Filipino farmworker from California, joined us.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love. His first steps in the world and in the service had been successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake. Anxious to show his independence and to advance, he had refused a post that had been offered him, hoping that this refusal would heighten his value; but it turned out that he had been too bold, and he was passed over. And having, whether he liked or not, taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he carried it off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though he bore no grudge against anyone, did not regard himself as injured in any way, and cared for nothing but to be left alone since he was enjoying himself. In reality he had ceased to enjoy himself as long ago as the year before, when he went away to Moscow. He felt that this independent attitude of a man who might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that he was not really capable of anything but being a straightforward, good-natured fellow. His connection with Madame Karenina, by creating so much sensation and attracting general attention, had given him a fresh distinction which soothed his gnawing worm of ambition for a while, but a week before that worm had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpuhovskoy, who had left school with him and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon generals so young.