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.

Page 15 of 344 · 20 per page

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  My glasses would then be rivetted upon him; my eyes gloated upon his heavenly figure, so full of youth, life, and manhood. "The longing that I felt to press my mouth on his beautiful mouth and parted lips was so intense that it always made my penis water. "At times the space between us seemed to lessen and dwindle in such a way that I felt as though I could breathe his warm and scented breath—nay, I actually seemed to feel the contact of his body against my own. "The sensation produced by the mere thought that his skin was touching mine excited my nervous system in such a way that the intensity of this barren pleasure produced at first a pleasant numbness over my whole body, which being prolonged, soon turned into a dull pain. "He himself always appeared to feel my presence in the theatre, for his eyes invariably looked for me until they pierced the densest crowd to find me out. I knew, however, that he could not really see me in the corner where I was ensconced, either in the pit, the gallery, or at the bottom of some box. Still, go whithersoever I would, his glances were always directed towards me. Ah, those eyes! as unfathomable as the dim water of a well. Even now, as I remember them after these many years, my heart beats, and I feel my head grow giddy thinking of them. If you had seen those eyes, you would know what that burning languor which poets are always writing about really is. "Of one thing I was justly proud. Since that famous evening of the charity concert, he played—if not in a more theoretically correct way—far more brilliantly and more sensationally than he had ever done before. "His whole heart now poured itself out in those voluptuous Hungarian melodies, and all those whose blood was not frozen with envy and age were entranced by that music. "His name, therefore, began to atract large audiences, and although musical critics were divided in their opinions, the papers always had long articles about him." "And—being so much in love with him—you had the fortitude to suffer, and yet to resist the temptation of seeing him." "I was young and inexperienced, therefore moral; for what is morality but prejudice?" "Prejudice?" "Well, is nature moral? Does the dog that smells and licks with evident gusto the first bitch that he meets, trouble his unsophisticated brains with morality? Does the poodle that endeavours to sodomize that little cur coming across the street care what a canine Mrs.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I sat in front of my laptop and wrote more words than had come to me in years—all at once. They just strung themselves together and I felt like a writing god. I had to have more of this woman. I’d write a library full of books if I had a year with her. Imagine a lifetime. She was meant for me. I cleaned out my weeds, I cleaned out my closets, I bought a new table and chairs for my kitchen. I finished my book. E-mailed it to my editor. I lingered some more at my kitchen window, industriously washing and rewashing my dishes. It was Christmas before I found her again. Actual Christmas—the day of tinsel and turkey and colorful paper wrapped around goodies we don’t want or need. I have a mother and a father and twin sisters with rhyming names. I was on my way to their house for Christmas dinner when I saw her jogging along the barren sidewalk. She was headed for the lake, her fluorescent sneakers blurring beneath her. She was a flash of speed. Her legs were chorded with muscle. I’d bet she could outrun a deer if she tried. I sped up and pulled into the empty lot of an Indian restaurant about half a mile ahead of her. I could smell the curries seeping from the building: green and red and yellow. I hopped out of my car and crossed the street, planning to cut her off before she reached the lake. She would have to go through me to get to the trail. I looked bolder than I felt. She could tell me to go to hell. By the time she saw me it was too late to pretend she hadn’t. Her pace slowed until she was bent at the knees in front of me. I watched the way her back rose and fell. She was breathing hard. “Merry Christmas,” I said. “Sorry for interrupting your run.” She glared at me from her bent position, confirming my guess that she didn’t want to see me. “I didn’t mean to upset you the last time you were at my house,” I said. “If you’d given me the chance to apologize I wo—” “You didn’t upset me,” she said. And then, “I finished my book.” Finished her book? I gaped. “In the three weeks I haven’t seen you? I thought you’d barely started.” “Yes, and now I’ve finished it.” I opened and closed my mouth. It took me a year to complete a manuscript, and that didn’t include the time I spent on research. “So when you just left like that…?” “I knew what I had to write,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Why didn’t you say something? Call me?” I felt like a clingy high school girl. “You’re an artist. I thought you’d understand.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Barville, who used her house, just come to town, whom she was not a little perplexed about providing a suitable companion for; which was indeed a point of difficulty, as he was under the tyranny of a cruel taste: that of an ardent desire, not only of being unmercifully whipped himself, but of whipping others, in such sort, that though he paid extravagantly those who had the courage and complaisance to submit to his humour, there were few, delicate as he was in the choice of his subjects, who would exchange turns with him so terribly at the expense of their skin. But, what yet increased the oddity of this strange fancy was the gentleman being young; whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as are, through age, obliged to have recourse to this experiment, for quickening the circulation of their sluggish juices, and determining a conflux of the spirits of pleasure towards those flagging shrivelly parts, that rise to life only by virtue of those titillating ardours created by the discipline of their opposites, with which they have so surprising a consent. This Mrs. Cole could not well acquaint me with, in any expectation of my offering for service: for, sufficiently easy as I was in my circumstances, it must have been the temptation of an immense interest indeed, that could have induced me to embrace such a job, neither had I ever expressed, nor indeed, felt the least impulse or curiosity to know more of a taste, that promised so much more pain than pleasure to those that stood in no need of such violent goads: what then should move me to subscribe myself voluntarily to a party of pain, foreknowing it such? Why, to tell the plain truth, it was a sudden caprice, a gust of fancy for trying a new experiment, mixed with the vanity of approving my personal courage to Mrs. Cole, that determined me, at all risks, to propose myself to her and relieve her from any further look-out. Accordingly, I at once pleased and surprised her, with a frank and unreserved tender of my person to her and her friend’s absolute disposal on this occasion. My good temporal mother was, however, so kind as to use all the arguments she could imagine to dissuade me: but, as I found they only turned on a motive of tenderness to me, I persisted in my resolution, and thereby acquitted my offer of any suspicion of its not having been sincerely made, or out of compliment only.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in favour of her principal end, pleasure, had inspired her with, the art of yielding, coy’d it indeed, but coy’d it to the purpose; for with all her straining, her wrestling, and striving to break from the clasp of his arms, she was so far wiser yet than to mean it, that in her struggles, it was visible she aimed at nothing more than multiplying points of touch with him, and drawing yet closer the folds that held them every where entwined, like two tendrils of a vine intercurling: together: so that the same effect, as when Louisa strove in good earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now produced by different motives. Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had caused a general glow, a tender suffusion of heightened carnation over their bodies; both equally white and smooth-skinned; so that as their limbs were thus amorously interwoven, in sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to distinguish who they respectively belonged to, but for the brawnier, bolder muscles of the stronger sex. In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her, and had tied at all points the true lover’s knot; when now, adieu all the little refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the friendly feint! She was presently driven forcibly out of the power of using any art; and indeed, what art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with her assailant, invaded in the heart of her capital and carried by storm, lay at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly and completely?

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  She then had me untied, but I had to get down on my knees and thank her for the punishment and kiss her hand. [Footnote 2: A woman’s jacket.] “Now you understand the supersensual fool! Under the lash of a beautiful woman my senses first realized the meaning of woman. In her fur-jacket she seemed to me like a wrathful queen, and from then on my aunt became the most desirable woman on God’s earth. “My Cato-like austerity, my shyness before woman, was nothing but an excessive feeling for beauty. In my imagination sensuality became a sort of cult. I took an oath to myself that I would not squander its holy wealth upon any ordinary person, but I would reserve it for an ideal woman, if possible for the goddess of love herself. “I went to the university at a very early age. It was in the capital where my aunt lived. My room looked at that time like Doctor Faustus’s. Everything in it was in a wild confusion. There were huge closets stuffed full of books, which I bought for a song from a Jewish dealer on the Servanica; 3 there were globes, atlases, flasks, charts of the heavens, skeletons of animals, skulls, the busts of eminent men. It looked as though Mephistopheles might have stepped out from behind the huge green store as a wandering scholiast at any moment. [Footnote 3: The street of the Jews in Lemberg.] “I studied everything in a jumble without system, without selection: chemistry, alchemy, history, astronomy, philosophy, law, anatomy, and literature; I read Homer, Virgil, Ossian, Schiller, Goethe, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Voltaire, Molière, the Koran, the Kosmos, Casanova’s Memoirs. I grew more confused each day, more fantastical, more supersensual. All the time a beautiful ideal woman hovered in my imagination. Every so and so often she appeared before me like a vision among my leather-bound books and dead bones, lying on a bed of roses, surrounded by cupids. Sometimes she appeared gowned like the Olympians with the stern white face of the plaster Venus; sometimes in braids of a rich brown, blue-eyes, in my aunt’s red velvet kazabaika, trimmed with ermine. “One morning when she had again risen out of the golden mist of my imagination in all her smiling beauty, I went to see Countess Sobol, who received me in a friendly, even cordial manner. She gave me a kiss of welcome, which put all my senses in a turmoil. She was probably about forty years old, but like most well-preserved women of the world, still very attractive.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  In passing, Frederico also touches on the role of the two remaining cornerstones in boosting his affection for Audrey: searching for power and overcoming ambivalence. He doesn’t like the fact that she controls how often they see each other. Yet her position of power keeps him, quite literally, in hot pursuit. More often than not, the desire to be close is felt most keenly by whichever partner is less secure—Frederico in this case. Nor is it unusual for someone in Frederico’s position to have bouts of ambivalence about the relationship. He naturally wants to avoid being hurt again if this affair is doomed, yet each time he reaffirms that Audrey is worth the risks, his ambivalence is overpowered by his need to be close. CLOSENESS AS AN ANTIAPHRODISIACHardly anyone needs to be convinced that feeling close to someone can be a turn-on. Yet it’s equally important to realize two ways that emotional connections can dampen rather than stimulate desire: (1) when closeness becomes an obligation or demand and (2) when it threatens to dissolve the separateness that is the basis of all attraction. In Frederico’s story, it’s impossible to ignore the contrast between his role as a closed, nonintimate male with his old girlfriend and his eagerness for total involvement with Audrey. We know practically nothing about his old relationship. But in his own analysis of why he felt so much closer to Audrey, Frederico writes, “Nancy [his old girlfriend] made me feel like intimacy was a chore—something to get out of. I also felt completely inadequate to satisfy her. Proving to Nancy that I loved her had become a test I was destined to fail.” Of this I am sure: whenever closeness feels like a requirement—something owed rather than inherently gratifying—it inevitably switches from an aphrodisiac to an antiaphrodisiac. The erotic mind may enthusiastically gravitate toward the risks of intimate self-disclosure. But once you become convinced that you cannot meet that challenge, your enthusiasm changes into avoidance. Many long-term partners set each other up for a similar fate by allowing their closeness to become a “should” rather than a choice. Even couples who manage to avoid making intimacy an obligation will eventually face its paradoxical nature. In early romance the urge to merge magnetically draws the lovers to each other. Yet once they are doing everything together, developing feelings and opinions as a unit rather than as two individuals, they undermine the sense of otherness that was the original basis of their mutual appeal.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  LUSTY ATTRACTIONSDictionary definitions of lust mirror our mixed feelings about it, running the gamut from surprisingly positive to strongly negative. At one pole lust is simply pleasurable delight in our sensual appetites. It can also connote a strong enthusiasm, as in the phrase “lust for life.” Most people see this kind of lust as admirable. Similarly, Webster’s defines “lusty” as “vigorous, robust, and hearty”—nothing negative at all. At the opposite extreme, lust is defined as unrestrained, wanton surrender to carnal urges. From this point of view, a lustful person is often considered lascivious, lecherous, unsavory, and a potential menace. Sexual lust is decidedly unpopular these days, firmly linked with disease, pregnant teenagers, sexual abuse, harassment, sexual addiction, and even lust murders. Given such unappealing associations, it may be difficult to think of it in a positive light. Thus the emphasis has shifted to relationships and monogamy. There’s been quite a change since the 1960s and 1970s, when sexual experimentation was widely celebrated. AIDS, of course, changed all that, but other factors also played a part. If you participated in that era’s “sexual revolution” you got a pretty good look at lust in action and probably weren’t completely comfortable with everything you saw. Many people, especially women, found that casual sex wasn’t particularly satisfying. Although lust has perhaps inevitably fallen into disfavor, we make a terrible mistake if we reject it completely. Our erotic health requires that we make room for lust, for it provides much of the zest that makes sex fun and self-affirming. Socially, it is also very important not to reject lust, no matter how relentless the antisexual clamoring may become. When lust falls victim to the forces of repression, its negative potentials increase dramatically. At the heart of lusty attraction lies the desire for sexual excitation and orgasmic release, pure and simple. It can be profound, utterly meaningless, playful, loving, or hostile. In its most intense forms lust has an animalistic quality that can be exhilarating, frightening, or both. When you’re feeling lusty your attention is focused primarily on whatever it is you want that produces and intensifies sensations of arousal, especially in the genitals. LUST’S OBJECTWhen you see someone who looks sexy, it seems as if that person is making you feel aroused, even though the source of arousal is your own mind and body. The sexy other is simply a stimulus and, at least to a degree, an object. The nature of lust is to objectify, a reality that can be troublesome for many people. According to one popular line of thinking, to see a person as an object is to do him or her a grave injustice. People must always be regarded in their entirety, not merely “used” for selfish gratification. Focusing on just a part of someone for sexual kicks—voluptuous breasts, bulging biceps, or genitals, for instance—may even be considered a form of victimization.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Notice how he is the source of all the action. But notice also that she is the primary recipient of the attention and pleasure—after all, it’s her fantasy. It could be argued that a girl’s early fantasies of sexual surrender are part of her internal preparation for the submissive role she will later be expected to play. After all, the most familiar images of male-female sexual interaction include at least mild domination by the man along with a complementary yielding by the woman. If, however, early submission fantasies help prepare us for adult sex-role behavior, many of the men in The Group appear to have been studying the wrong scripts as boys. When men remember images’ of power in their earliest fantasies, as they often do, they’re just as likely as women to be submitting to a highly desirable but more experienced and powerful other, as in Juan’s fantasy: When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I had a crush on my teacher. Miss Peters. I would fantasize that I did something bad (even though in reality I tried to be her favorite) so I had to stay after school. I imagined she took off my clothes to punish me, but I didn’t mind a bit. I wanted her to touch me. I especially liked the idea of being forced to sit under her desk while she graded papers, waiting for her to spread her legs so I could sneak a peek at her panties. With few exceptions, when The Group’s earliest fantasies involve power roles, the fantasizer, whether a boy or a girl, is being guided, coaxed, or forced into sensual or sexual experimentation. Yet such fantasies are virtually always described as pleasurable, with the frequent exception of guilt afterward. In my view, we first discover the erotic potentials of receptivity and aggression in the powerlessness, especially concerning sexual matters, of our youth. PARADOXES OF POWERPower positions in sex are often described as “top” (the forceful, aggressive initiator) or “bottom” (the receptive, yielding responder). At first glance it may appear obvious who’s playing which role. It’s commonly assumed, for instance, that the inserter in intercourse—vaginal or anal—is the top, while the insertee is the bottom. Likewise, a person being “done” or pleasured is seen as bottom because the “doer” is more active. Perceptions shift, however, in male-male encounters; the receiver of oral stimulation is usually seen as the top because he is assumed to be in a more manly position. When people describe the subjective experience of a top-bottom encounter, there’s hardly anything obvious about who’s in control. I have consistently observed that whenever people engage in sexual power exchanges voluntarily and enthusiastically, whether they play the role of top or bottom, they feel an enormous sense of powerfulness and validation. Peter, a construction worker in his mid-thirties, demonstrates the paradox of empowerment through submission, as his beautiful and aggressive girlfriend teaches him a thing or two:

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I wonder if we will discover a fourth. Even as I come across pages of Knotted and hand them to Isaac, it is the nameless book that catches my attention. Each page has a line that pulls at my eyes. I read them, re-read them. No one I know writes this way, yet it is so familiar. I feel a lust for this author’s words. A jealousy at being able to string such rich sentences together. The first line keeps coming back to me with each subsequent line I read. The punishment for her peace was upon him, and he gave her rest. I don’t notice when Isaac disappears from the room to make us food. I smell it when he comes back and hands me a bowl of soup. I set it aside, intent on finishing my work, but he picks it up and places it back in my hands. “Eat it,” he instructs me. I don’t realize how hungry I am until I reluctantly place the spoon in my mouth, sucking the salty brown broth. I set the spoon aside and drink from the bowl, my eyes still scanning the piles set neatly around me. My leg is aching, as is my back, but I don’t want to stop. If I ask Isaac to help me move he will guess at my discomfort and force me to rest. I rub the small of my back when he’s not looking, and press on. “I know what you’re doing,” he says, as he leans over his pile of pages. I look up in surprise. “What?” “When you think I’m not looking, I am.” I flush, and my hand automatically reaches for my aching muscles. I pull back at the last minute and curl my hand into a fist instead. Isaac snickers and shakes his head, turning back to his work. I’m glad he doesn’t press the issue. I pick up another page. It’s my own. The story I wrote for Nick. Instead of putting it on its pile, I read it. True and trite. It was my call to him. The first line of the book went like this: Every time you want to remember what love feels like, you look for me. That line grabbed every woman who had ever offered their throbbing little heart to a man. Because we all have someone who reminds us of what love stings like. That unreliquished love that slips between our fingers like sand. The second line of the book confused them a little. It’s why their eyes kept following my trail of words. I was dropping breadcrumbs for the disaster that was to come. Stay the fuck away from me. I only wrote the book because he wrote one for me. It seemed fair. Most people text, or call, or write e-mails. My love and I write each other books.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "The old general chuckled, evidently enjoying the fun. "The Spahi then made his bed-fellow go on all fours, with his head down and his backside up; then he slipped the dates into the hole of the anus, where he nibbled them as his friend pressed them out, after which he licked carefully all the syrup that oozed out and trickled on the buttocks. "Everybody applauded and the two men evidently were excited, for their battering-rams were jerking up their heads, and nodding significantly. "'Wait, don't get up yet,' said the Spahi, 'I haven't yet quite finished; let me just put the fruit of the tree of knowledge into it.' Thereupon he got on him, and taking his instrument in his hand, he pressed it into the hole in which the dates had been; and slippery as the gap was, it disappeared entirely after a thrust or two. The officer then did not pull it out at all, but only kept rubbing himself against the other man's buttocks. Meanwhile the cock of the sodomized man was so restless that it commenced beating a tattoo against its owner's stomach. "'Now for the passive pleasures that are left for age and experience,' said the general. And he began to teaze the glans with his tongue, to suck it, and to twiddle the column with his fingers in the deftest way. "The delight expressed by the sodomized man seemed indescribable. He panted, he shivered, his eyelids drooped, his lips were languid, the nerves of his face twitched; he seemed, every moment, ready to faint with too much feeling. Still he appeared to be resisting the paroxysm with might and main, knowing that the Spahi had acquired abroad the art of remaining in action for any length of time. Every now and then his head fell as if all his strength was gone, but then he lifted it up again, and—opening his lips—'Someone—in my mouth,' said he. "The Italian Marquis, who had doffed his gown, and who had nothing on but a diamond necklace and a pair of black silk stockings, got astride on two stools over the old general, and went to satisfy him. "At the sight of this tableau vivant of hellish concupiscence, all our blood rose bubbling to our heads. Everyone seemed eager to enjoy what those four men were feeling. Every unhooded phallus was not only full of blood, but as stiff as a rod of iron, and painful in its erection. Everyone was writhing as if tormented by an inward convulsion. I myself, not inured to such sights, was groaning with pleasure, maddened by Teleny's exciting kisses, and by the doctor, who was pressing his lips on the soles of my feet. "Finally, by the lusty thrusts the Spahi was now giving, by the eager way the general was sucking and the Marquis was being sucked, we understood that the last moment had come.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible was wrought in me, such violent, yet pleasingly irksome sensations took possession of me that I scarce knew how to contain myself; the smart of the lashes was now converted into such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me sigh, squeeze my thighs together, shift and wriggle about my seat, with a furious restlessness; whilst these itching ardours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of discipline had principally fallen, detached legions of burning, subtile, stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of assemblage, where their titillation raged so furiously, that I was even stinging made with them. No wonder then that in such a taking, and devoured by flames that licked up all modesty and reserve, my eyes, now charged brimful of the most intense desire, fired on my companion very intelligible signal of distress: my companion, I say, who grew in them every instant more amiable, and more necessary to my urgent wishes and hopes of immediate ease. Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations, soon knew the pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out of the way, he began a prelude that flattered me with instant relief, to which I was not, however, so near as I imagined: for as he was unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and rouse to action his unactive torpid machine, he blushingly owned that no good was to be expected from it, unless I took it in hand to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just refreshing the smart of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more than a boy’s top, keep up without lashing.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  From the moment I saw him, it was like the beginning of our relationship all over again. Sexual sparks were flying everywhere. He knew the right places to touch me and the perfect words to say. And he used all his tricks until I was like jelly. Incredible! Joyce’s explosive encounter is defined and energized by the push-pull of ambivalence. Her desire to avoid him only intensifies the magnetism of his “tricks.” Yet by the end of the story, her ambivalence is nowhere to be seen. In a burst of passion, ambivalence is transformed. THE CORNERSTONES IN ACTIONNone of the cornerstones is required for sexual arousal. A strong mutual attraction combined with a vital sensuality can, by themselves, create a very satisfying turn-on. But as you have seen, the cornerstones are extremely effective arousal intensifiers. And because excitement is notably heightened in the peak moment, all the features that contribute to our arousal, including any of the cornerstones, are especially visible. You’ve probably noticed that many of The Group’s encounters and fantasies include more than one cornerstone—even though I’ve deliberately selected stories that are relatively pure examples of whichever cornerstone I’m discussing at the time. Three-quarters of The Group’s memorable encounters and fantasies contain at least one cornerstone, and about 40 percent mention two or more. Zack alludes to all cornerstones except ambivalence: There was this girl that I wanted for a year and had often used her as a model during masturbation sessions [longing]. When we finally had sex for the first time it was great. I enjoyed being the aggressor, since I had always been the passive one in my previous sexual relationships. I enjoyed having her submit to me and let me do as I pleased [power]. What really turned me on was seeing her naked and hearing her breathe deeply. We were also in a place that was risky to be fooling around in [naughtiness factor]. I had just about come by the time I had her clothes off. It was extremely arousing when she started touching me. I had always imagined what it would be like and it turned out to be even better. Many people have a particular affinity for just one or two of the cornerstones, while the others are of little interest. In general, those cornerstones that were most consistently a part of your earliest experiences of arousal are likely to be the ones you respond to today. Sometimes, although not always, it is essential to become aware of which cornerstone or cornerstones excite you. I learned this when Alice entered therapy with me because she was tired of acquiescing to sex with Hugh, her husband of nineteen years. Rarely had she felt genuine desire during her marriage. But now an undeniable revulsion was forcing her to stop going through the motions and discover why she was so turned off.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Wanda asked quickly. “For me, too.” “And if I should give you that pleasure,” Wanda exclaimed mockingly. “I shall suffer terrible agonies, but I shall adore you the more,” I replied. “But you would never deceive me, you would have the daemonic greatness of saying to me: I shall love no one but you, but I shall make happy whoever pleases me.” Wanda shook her head. “I don’t like deception, I am honest, but what man exists who can support the burden of truth. Were I say to you: this serene, sensual life, this paganism is my ideal, would you be strong enough to bear it?” “Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose you. I feel how little I really mean to you.” “But Severin—” “But it is so,” said I, “and just for that reason—” “For that reason you would—” she smiled roguishly—“have I guessed it?” “Be your slave!” I exclaimed. “Be your unrestricted property, without a will of my own, of which you could dispose as you wished, and which would therefore never be a burden to you. While you drink life at its fullness, while surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the serene happiness and Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put on and take off your shoes.” “You really aren’t so far from wrong,” replied Wanda, “for only as my slave could you endure my loving others. Furthermore the freedom of enjoyment of the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. It must give one a feeling of like unto a god to see a man kneel before one and tremble. I want a slave, do you hear, Severin?” “Am I not your slave?” “Then listen to me,” said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. “I want to be yours, as long as I love you.” “A month?” “Perhaps, even two.” “And then?” “Then you become my slave.” “And you?” “I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly. “But what does all this mean,” said Wanda, resting her head in both hands with her gaze lost in the distance, “a golden fancy which never can become true.” An uncanny brooding melancholy seemed shed over her entire being; I have never seen her like that. “Why unachievable?” I began. “Because slavery doesn’t exist any longer.” “Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient, to Turkey,” I said eagerly. “You would—Severin—in all seriousness,” Wanda replied. Her eyes burned. “Yes, in all seriousness, I want to be your slave,” I continued. “I want your power over me to be sanctified by law; I want my life to be in your hands, I want nothing that could protect or save me from you. Oh, what a voluptuous joy when once I feel myself entirely dependent upon your absolute will, your whim, at your beck and call.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  The aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible. Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision — a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered. Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult? The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need — the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love. But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting. It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel. As women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of the necessity for reassessing the quality of all the aspects of our lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them. The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros , the personification of love in all its aspects — born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives. There are frequent attempts to equate pornography and eroticism, two diametrically opposed uses of the sexual. Because of these attempts, it has become fashionable to separate the spiritual ( psychic and emotional) from the political, to see them as contradictory or antithetical. “What do you mean, a poetic revolutionary, a meditating gunrunner?” In the same way, we have attempted to separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the spiritual to a world of flattened affect, a world of the ascetic who aspires to feel nothing. But nothing is farther from the truth. For the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the gravest immobility. The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  All the sanguinary tyrants that ever occupied a throne; the inquisitors who had the heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered; all the woman whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful, beautiful, and violent women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of Hungary, Queen Margot, Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane, the Russian Czarinas of last century—all these I saw in furs or in robes bordered with ermine.” “And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you,” said Wanda, and simultaneously she began to drape her magnificent fur-cloak coquettishly about her, so that the dark shining sable played beautifully around her bust and arms. “Well, how do you feel now, half broken on the wheel?” Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself down before her, and threw my arms about her. “Yes—you have awakened my dearest dream,” I cried. “It has slept long enough.” “And this is?” She put her hand on my neck. I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the influence of this warm little hand and of her regard, which, tenderly searching, fell upon me through her half-closed lids. “To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom I worship.” “And who on that account maltreats you,” interrupted Wanda, laughing. “Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she gives herself to another.” “And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make a present of you to your successful rival when driven insane by jealousy you must meet him face to face, who will turn you over to his absolute mercy. Why not? This final tableau doesn’t please you so well?” I looked at Wanda frightened. “You surpass my dreams.” “Yes, we women are inventive,” she said, “take heed, when you find your ideal, it might easily happen, that she will treat you more cruelly than you anticipate.” “I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!” I exclaimed, burying my burning face in her lap. “Not I?” exclaimed Wanda, throwing off her furs and moving about the room laughing. She was still laughing as I went downstairs, and when I stood musing in the yard, I still heard her peals of laughter above. * * * * * “Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?” Wanda asked archly, when we met in the park to-day. At first I could find no answer.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  She contracted her forehead. “Ah! You are afraid already, or perhaps you regret, but it is too late now. You have sworn, I have your word of honor. But let me hear them.” “First of all I should like to have it included in our contract, that you will never completely leave me, and then that you will never give me over to the mercies of any of your admirers—” “But Severin,” exclaimed Wanda with her voice full of emotion and with tears in her eyes, “how can you imagine that I—and you, a man who loves me so absolutely, who puts himself so entirely in my power—” She halted. “No, no!” I said, covering her hands with kisses. “I don’t fear anything from you that might dishonor me. Forgive me the ugly thought.” Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine, and seemed to reflect. “You have forgotten something,” she whispered coquettishly, “the most important thing!” “A condition?” “Yes, that I must always wear my furs,” exclaimed Wanda. “But I promise you I’ll do that anyhow because they give me a despotic feeling. And I shall be very cruel to you, do you understand?” “Shall I sign the contract?” I asked. “Not yet,” said Wanda. “I shall first add your conditions, and the actual signing won’t occur until the proper time and place.” “In Constantinople?” “No. I have thought things over. What special value would there be in owning a slave where everyone owns slaves. What I want is to have a slave, I alone, here in our civilized sober, Philistine world, and a slave who submits helplessly to my power solely on account of my beauty and personality, not because of law, of property rights, or compulsions. This attracts me. But at any rate we will go to a country where we are not known and where you can appear before the world as my servant without embarrassment. Perhaps to Italy, to Rome or Naples.” * * * * * We were sitting on Wanda’s ottoman. She wore her ermine jacket, her hair was loose and fell like a lion’s mane down her back. She clung to my lips, drawing my soul from my body. My head whirled, my blood began to seethe, my heart beat violently against hers. “I want to be absolutely in your power, Wanda,” I exclaimed suddenly, seized by that frenzy of passion when I can scarcely think clearly or decide freely. “I want to put myself absolutely at your mercy for good or evil without any condition, without any limit to your power.” While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and lay at her feet looking up at her with drunken eyes. “How beautiful you now are,” she exclaimed, “your eyes half-broken in ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away. How wonderful your look would be if you were being beaten to death, in the extreme agony.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  One day that we had dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house, there started an indispensable necessity for my mother’s going down to Greenwich to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I certainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I had not the least relish for. The pretext, however, passed, and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had not a male creature in the house. “As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction probably proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the bedclothes, in all the loosest undress.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  FORBIDDEN FRUITEven though it may not fit your ideals about love and sex, the unvarnished truth is that partners who catch our attention by virtue of being inappropriate or forbidden are often among the most magnetically attractive. You can readily see this principle at work in illicit affairs. While you may find the idea threatening or disturbing, you are no doubt aware that the forbidden nature of an affair gives it exciting elements not present in long-standing, committed relationships. The newness and greater opportunities for longing provided by an affair combine with the belief that the affair is wrong to produce a strong erotic charge. Notice how JoAnn enjoys both sources of naughtiness—a forbidden partner and the risk of discovery—in an affair with another woman, whom she refers to as “M.” But her partner isn’t just any woman. She’s the ex-partner of JoAnn’s own current lover: I found it very arousing to know them both intimately. I felt “between” them, so to speak. It was nasty to rent a private room in a hot tub place, sort of like paying for sex by the hour. I imagined that everyone could tell instantly why we were there. Believe it or not, I’m quite conservative and traditional. So it was stimulating to feel unlike my normal self. “M” was dominant—which I loved. We had rough and wild sex with lots of screaming, biting, and scratching. I enjoyed making a lot of noise and letting myself go. She sat on the edge of the hot tub and I went down on her. She is the type of woman who ejaculates when she comes. There I was, kneeling in the tub, giving her head, while she was coming all over my face and into the water. I felt like a total slut. We made a very sexy mess and it was an added bonus that we didn’t even have to clean up. The imagery of passion gone wild permeates JoAnn’s story. She paints a picture of sleaze and dirtiness with big, bold strokes. Following a more subtle approach, Helena, age forty-nine, makes her partner seem forbidden by associating him in her mind with someone else: I was alone in Mexico, a tourist. While visiting an archeological site, I struck up a conversation with an architecture student who also wrote poetry, studied Yoga, and was a runner. His combination of energetic youth and lively intelligence attracted me powerfully. Also, he was close to the age of my younger son (early twenties), which provided a thrill of an almost incestuous kind. We walked back to town—about five miles—where I smuggled him up to my room. We made love several times during the next few hours. Rarely have I had a lover more enthusiastic. Yet he was tender and thoughtful of what I wanted and how I wanted it.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  One can see by this example the motor that propels all great social movements, for good or ill. LAWRENCE WRIGHT Austin, Texas 1 The Convert London, Ontario, is a middling manufacturing town halfway between Toronto and Detroit, once known for its cigars and breweries. In a tribute to its famous namesake, London has its own Covent Garden, Piccadilly Street, and even a Thames River that forks around the modest, economically stressed downtown. The city, which sits in a humid basin, is remarked upon for its unpleasant weather. Summers are unusually hot, winters brutally cold, the springs and falls fine but fleeting. The most notable native son was the bandleader Guy Lombardo, who was honored in a local museum, until it closed for lack of visitors. London was a difficult place for an artist looking to find himself. Paul Haggis was twenty-one years old in 1975. He was walking toward a record store in downtown London when he encountered a fast- talking, long-haired young man with piercing eyes standing on the corner of Dundas and Waterloo Streets. There was something keen and strangely adamant in his manner. His name was Jim Logan. He pressed a book into Haggis’s hands. “You have a mind,” Logan said. “This is the owner’s manual.” Then he demanded, “Give me two dollars.” The book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard, which was published in 1950. By the time Logan pushed it on Haggis, the book had sold more than two million copies throughout the world. Haggis opened the book and saw a page stamped with the words “Church of Scientology.” “Take me there,” he said to Logan. At the time, there were only a handful of Scientologists in the entire province of Ontario. By coincidence, Haggis had heard about the organization a couple of months earlier, from a friend who had called it a cult. That interested Haggis; he considered the possibility of doing a documentary film about it. When he arrived at the church’s quarters in London, it certainly didn’t look like a cult—two young men occupying a hole-in-the-wall office above Woolworth’s five-and-dime. As an atheist, Haggis was wary of being dragged into a formal belief system. In response to his skepticism, Logan showed him a passage by Hubbard that read: “What is true is what is true for you. No one has any right to force data on you and command you to believe it or else. If it is not true for you, it isn’t true. Think your own way through things, accept what is true for you, discard the rest. There is nothing unhappier than one who tries to live in a chaos of lies.” These words resonated with Haggis.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  We have never spoken about the kiss we shared when we thought we were dying. He breathes into my mouth as his hands run up the length of my thighs. His hands feel like warm water running across my skin. I cold shiver. My robe is hiked up to the top of my thighs. When his palms leave my legs, I want to cry out, No! I want more of the warmth, but he reaches up and grabs both lapels of my robe, pulling it open and exposing my chest. I’m frozen. Numb. He touches my scars. My barren womanhood. Frozen … frozen … frozen … and then I break open. I gasp and grab his hands, pushing them away. “What are you doing?” He doesn’t answer me. He lifts his hands to my neck. Wherever he touches me there is heat. I roll my head back and his thumbs graze my jaw. “What I want,” he says. I roll my head to the left to try to pull away from him, but he pushes his hand into my hair at the back of my head, and kisses the side of my neck until I’m shivering. He has me at a disadvantage; I’m trying to keep myself upright with one hand and push him away with the other. Eventually, my hand slips out from under me and we collapse on the table. He kisses me. Hard at first—like he’s angry—but when I touch his face he softens. It’s when his lips drag slowly across mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth that I relax. My legs lift off of the table and my feet cradle his waist. Heat; heat on the arches of my feet, heat on my mouth, heat pressed between my legs. He reaches down and pulls my robe open all the way. I lift my arms out of the robe and wrap them around him. Then he rolls me until I’m on top of him. I sit up and he lifts me at the waist until I’m hovering above his erection. He’s right there; the tip is touching me. All I have to do is push down and he will be inside of me. And I want him to be. Because I need to touch and be touched. But Isaac is hesitating. He doesn’t want to let go of my waist. He’s thinking of his wife; I’m thinking of his wife. I’m about to tell him, forget it, when he abruptly releases his hold on my waist. Without him suspending me, and with no warning I slide onto him. I suck air loudly. It’s a gasp if I’ve ever heard one. One minute I’m empty, the next I’m full. A deep, slow panic. He does not belong to me. What am I doing?