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 In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Erotica In the late spring, you surprise yourself by asking her to cover your mouth as you come. She does, pressing a firm palm against your crescendoing howl, and it’s as if the sound is being pushed back into your body so that it might suffuse your every molecule. When you are ebbing, and try to inhale but can’t, she lets go, and you can feel the lingering tingle of unlanguage. After this, you ask her to talk to you in a low, raspy stream while she fucks you, and she does: switching effortlessly between English and French, muttering about her cock and how it’s filling you up, pushing her hand over your face and grabbing the architecture of your jaw to turn it this way and that. She shaves her cunt smooth, and it glows like the inside of a conch shell. She loves wearing a harness; you suck her off that way and she comes like it’s real, bucking and lifting off the mattress. You don’t know what is more of a miracle: her body, or her love of your body. She haunts your erotic imagination. You are both perpetually wet. You fuck, it seems, everywhere: beds and tables and floors; over the phone. When you are physically next to each other, she loves to marvel over your differences: how her skin is pale as skim milk and yours, olive; how her nipples are pink and yours are brown. “Everything is darker on you,” she says. You would let her swallow you whole, if she could.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  To the Judaeans I became as a Judaean, that I might win Judaeans; to those under law as one under law, though I am certainly not under law myself, that I might win those under law; to the law-less as law-less—though I certainly am not law-less with God, but in the “law of Christ”—that I might win the law-less. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I became all things to all people so that by all means I might save some. And I do all that because of The Announcement, so that I might be a partaker in it with others. (1 Cor 9:19–23) It is hard to see how Paul could have put more starkly the primacy of The Announcement and the resulting irrelevance of all other norms. Feeling an imperative to “rescue” as many as possible, he persuades Judaeans and foreigners in whatever language will work, though he claims no attachment except to The Announcement—and is certainly not “under law.” I can almost hear any colleagues who may still be reading saying, “Yes, but what about Romans?” The question I proposed at the outset concerned Paul’s letters to the groups he founded. Even there, my interest is not in his internal thoughts or formative influences, which can only be conjectured, but in how his letters present his relationship to Judaean ancestral law. When Paul comes to write Romans, by contrast his proclamation of The Announcement in the east is over (Rom 15:18–28). Rome had apparently not been on his itinerary in declaring The Announcement, in part because the Christ group there was established by others. But now his plans have changed. Since he has decided to go as far as Spain to reach “the remainder” of non-Judaeans, he can hope to visit Rome without causing offence and with due respect, purely as a passing-through point, since he must pass that way anyway. His groups in Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, or Galatia did not know his letter to the Romans, however, and that is why I have ignored it while trying to understand his correspondence with them.

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

  Dwight’s kids came out to meet us when we drove up. The two oldest, a boy and a girl, waited at the bottom of the steps as a girl about my age ran up to my mother and threw her arms around her waist. I was completely disgusted. The girl was pinch-faced and scrawny, and on the back of her head she had a bald spot the size of a silver dollar. She made a kind of crooning noise as she clutched my mother, who, instead of pushing this person away, laughed and hugged her back. “This is Pearl,” Dwight said, and somehow freed my mother from her grasp. Pearl looked over at me. She did not smile, and neither did I. We walked up to the house and met the other two. Both of them were taller than Dwight. Skipper had a wedge-shaped head, flat in the back and sharp in front, with close-set eyes and a long blade of a nose. He wore a crew cut. Skipper regarded me with polite lack of interest and turned his attention to my mother, greeting her with grave but perfect courtesy. Norma just said “Hi!” and ruffled my hair. I looked up at her, and until we left Chinook two days later I stopped looking at her only when I was asleep or when someone walked between us. Norma was seventeen, ripe and lovely. Her lips were full and red, always a little swollen-looking as if she’d just woken up, and she moved sleepily too, languidly, stretching often. When she stretched, her blouse went taut and parted slightly between the buttons, showing milky slices of belly. She had the whitest skin. Thick red hair that she pushed sleepily back from her forehead. Green eyes flecked with brown. She used lavender water, and the faint sweetness of the smell got mixed up with the warmth she gave off. Sometimes, just fooling around, thinking nothing of it, she would put her arm around my shoulder and bump me with her hip, or pull me up against her. If Norma noticed my unblinking stare she took it for granted. She never seemed surprised by it, or embarrassed. When our eyes met she smiled. We brought our bags inside and took a tour of the house. It wasn’t really a house, but half of a barracks where German prisoners of war had been quartered. After the war the barracks had been converted to a duplex. A family named Miller lived on one side, Dwight’s family on the other, in three bedrooms that faced the kitchen, dining room, and living room across a narrow hallway. The rooms were small and dark. Her arms crossed over her chest, my mother peered into them and gushed falsely. Dwight sensed her reserve. He waved his hands around, declaring the plans he had for renovation.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Really? It’s amazing how much we seem to have in common. Shouldn’t we try to heal one another? Continue this conversation some other time—say, at dinner tonight?” “Yes, but not a restaurant. I’m in a cooking mood. Yesterday I picked some beautiful chanterelles, which I’m going to make into a Hungarian mushroom ragout. Join me?” Never had therapy hours ticked by so slowly. Ernest could think of nothing but Artemis. He was enchanted with her. Again and again he prodded himself: Concentrate! Focus! Earn your fee! Sweep this woman from your mind. But Artemis refused to be swept. She had set up housekeeping in his frontal cortex, and there she stayed. There was something eerie and alluring about Artemis that brought to mind the immortal, irresistible African queen he remembered from Rider Haggard’s novel She. It did not escape Ernest that he was thinking more about Artemis’s charms than about alleviating her distress. Ernest, mind your priorities, he rebuked himself. What are you doing? This whole project is deeply suspect even without any sexual adventures. You’re already treading on thin ice—milking Halston for data about how to find Artemis, turning yourself into an uninvited traveling therapist paying a house call on an attractive female stranger. You’re being grandiose, he cautioned himself, and unethical and unprofessional. Careful, careful, careful! “Your honor,” he imagined his supervisor’s voice booming from the witness stand, “Dr. Lash is a fine and ethical clinician except when he occasionally lapses into thinking with his small head.” No, no, no! Ernest protested. I’m doing nothing unethical. I intend an act of integrity, an act of charity. Halston, my patient, wantonly inflicted a grievous wound on another person, and it is inconceivable that he will ever be willing to make reparation. I, and only I, can redress the injury and do it quickly and efficiently. Artemis’s Hansel-and-Gretel house—small, high-gabled, dripping with gingerbread lacework and surrounded by a dense row of topped junipers—would have better suited Germany’s Black Forest than Marin County. Greeting him at the door with a glass of fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, Artemis apologized for not having alcohol in the house—”Drug-free zone here,” she said, then added, “except for ganja, the holy herb.” As soon as he sat down on the sofa, a faux-Louis XVI canapé covered with petit point and supported by dainty gray-white legs, Ernest returned to the subject of abandonment. But although he used all his practiced skills to draw her out, he soon had to recognize that he had overestimated Artemis’s distress.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Bildungsroman I didn’t date when most people dated. When other teenagers were figuring out what good and bad relationships looked like, I was busy being extremely weird: praying a lot, getting obsessed with sexual purity. The summer I was thirteen I was saved around a bonfire at a Christian summer camp. I’d spent most of the weeklong session making box-stitch plastic lanyards and climbing trees, but now the counselors—barely in their twenties—fed us s’mores and encouraged us to think about everything we’d ever done wrong. A “Certificate of New Birth,” printed on thin, grainy paper, was presented to me the next morning. It marks the exact moment of conversion at 10:20 p.m., well past my bedtime. Afterward, I was an antihipster, as earnest about Jesus as I could possibly be. I walked around with a patch on my backpack that said “Ask Me Why I’m a Christian.” I wore a ring that said “True Love Waits.” I went to church and liked it. I believed Jesus was my savior; that he had a personal stake in my salvation, as personal as my parents’ love for me. When I was sixteen, a new associate pastor, Joel Jones, was rotated into our United Methodist parish. When he introduced himself to the church youth, I felt a kick deep in my pelvis. He was handsome, with a goatee and straight, sandy hair that jutted out over his forehead. He was a little pudgy, but only just. He had a wedding ring. And when he shook my hand, he looked directly into my eyes. Joel was around a lot. He participated in youth group events alongside his normal church duties. He gave smart, politically progressive sermons that sowed chaos and indignation among the older congregants, which delighted me no end. Sometimes I would linger after the service was over. He always talked to me like I was an adult; he always remembered my name. In my senior year of high school, our church connected with a Methodist congregation in Lichtenburg, South Africa, that was looking to start a youth camp for its children and teens. A group of adults—including Joel—decided to do a trial run, and they invited me to go with them. We departed a frigid Northeast midwinter and arrived in the middle of a Southern Hemisphere summer. The camp was held on a sprawling farm outside town, a palatial property with a pool and a large white fountain and a gate running along the road. The campers, ranging from my age—seventeen—down to nine, stayed in a converted barn. I ran an arts-and-crafts elective. We built bonfires around which we sang and played guitar and made spontaneous confessions. Boerboels—a South African breed of giant dogs that resemble mastiffs—roamed the grounds. There was a new mother with distended nipples and a loping gait, and her massive puppies, who scrambled over each other to get to our outstretched hands.

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

  The three Ballard boys were already in line for the roller coaster. All the rides were free that day. Everything was free except the food and the games of chance. While we waited in line we compared Ballard pussy with Concrete pussy and discussed the various roller coaster fatalities of which we had personal knowledge. Arthur stood some distance away, watching me. Finally he came up and asked me when I wanted to leave. “In a while,” I said. “I think we should go now.” “In a while.” One of the Ballard boys offered Arthur a place in line but he shook his head and turned away. He was still waiting when I got off the ride, and he waited again when the Ballard boys and I attached ourselves to another line. He waited the whole afternoon, following us from one ride to the next. He watched me stand treat at the refreshment stand, gaily peeling bills off my wad. When we headed toward the midway he followed us, and came up to me again while one of the Ballard boys was throwing darts. “I thought we were going to Alaska,” he said. “We are.” “Yeah, but when?” “Look, we’re going , okay? Jeez. Just hold your horses.” I threw some darts myself. I tossed rings. I pitched baseballs at weighted milk bottles. I tried my strength. And then I stopped by the Blackout booth. Blackout was an unfamiliar game to me, but it looked like a snap. For a quarter you got a board with several sections marked out on it and three metal disks etched with symbols. If the symbols on a disk matched up in certain ways with the symbols on a section, you could lay the disk over the section. You received points according to the configuration of the disks on the board, and the sum of these points entitled you to prizes arranged in tiers against the back of the stall: ashtrays, paperweights, Kewpie dolls, porcelain bulldogs on the lowest tier; baseball mitts, stuffed animals, lighters shaped like pistols, clock radios, stiletto knives, ID bracelets on the next; and so on up to the topmost tier, where they kept the big prizes. Portable TVs. Binoculars. Cameras. Gold pinky rings set with diamonds. Diamond necklaces on gold chains, draped casually among the other prizes. Gold watches. And, attached to each of these prizes by a ribbon, a rolled-up one-hundred-dollar bill. The two men behind the counter saw us eyeing the prizes. Smoke and Rusty, their names were. Rusty was thin and nervous. Smoke was a fat smiling guy with gaps between his teeth. It turned out that Smoke had been a Scout himself, so for auld lang syne he let each of us have a free game. Rusty tried to talk him out of it, but Smoke insisted. It was just as easy as it looked. Two of the Ballard boys won paperweights, and I racked up enough points for an ID bracelet.

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

  Many straight men fantasize variations on the theme of the omni-sexual woman. She doesn’t have to be wooed or coaxed into sex. She doesn’t have to get in the mood, because she’s always in the mood. She doesn’t say, “How can you think about sex now when we have so much stuff to do?” She says, “More, more, more.” She doesn’t make him feel bad for wanting sex, because she wants it just as much. When two French maids invite you into their bed, you can be sure that neither one of them is going to say, “Not tonight, honey, I’m too tired.” Poor Man’s Bread Until recently, sexual fantasy has gotten a bad rap. What Christianity viewed as a sin later became, in the eyes of modern psychology, a perversion limited to the dissatisfied and the immature. Even today, many people believe that fantasy is nothing more than thin compensation for libidinal frustration and lack of opportunity due to failure of nerve, arrested development, or a paunch. They believe that what we fantasize about sexually is what we want to have happen in reality. “If my husband was really attracted to me he wouldn’t need to look at pictures of women with big boobs,” complains one wife. “When I fantasize about other men ravishing me, I feel like I’m betraying my boyfriend,” says another client. “What kind of woman wants to be raped?” I, too, used to take the narrow view that fantasy was the poor man’s bread—the meal of the sensually impoverished. I had been taught to regard fantasies as a symptom of neurosis or immaturity, or as erotically tinged romantic idealizations that blind one to his or her partner’s true identity and undermine real-life relationships. I was stuck at the border between the imaginary and the real, diverted from delving into the complexity of the erotic mind. Luckily, I was curious enough to ask my patients about their fantasy lives. But once they told me, I still didn’t know what to do with the information. It was like watching a great Russian movie without subtitles; I had no idea what it was about, though I could appreciate the beauty of the cinematography. Over the years, the thinking in the field has evolved, so that we now look at fantasy as a natural component of healthy adult sexuality. From an almost exclusive focus on fantasies as furtive compulsions (or perverse wishes of an unfulfilled minority), the view has widened. The collective work of philosophers and clinicians like Michel Foucault, Georges Bataille, Ethel Spector Person, Robert Stoller, Jack Morin, Michael Bader, and dozens of others has brought about a sea change in grasping the depth and richness of the erotic imagination: what it is, and what it can do.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  judging or directing the audience to what they should feel or think. Take that as the model for whatever you produce. Keep in mind the following: the more active our imagination becomes, the greater the pleasure we derive from it. When we were children, if we were given a game with explicit instructions and rules, we quickly lost interest. But if the game was something we invented or was loosely structured, allowing us to inject our own ideas and fantasies, we could sustain our interest for much longer. When we view an abstract painting that evokes dreams or fantasies, or see a film that is not easily interpreted, or hear a joke or advertisement that is ambiguous, we are the ones who do the interpreting, and we find it exciting to be able to exercise our imagination in this way. Through your work you want to stimulate this pleasure for people to the maximum degree. Create rivalries of desire. Human desire is never an individual phenomenon. We are social creatures and what we want almost always reflects what other people want. This stems from our earliest years. We saw the attention that our parents could give us (the object we first coveted) as a zero-sum game. If our siblings received a lot of attention, then there would be less for us. We had to compete with them and with others to get attention and affection. When we saw our siblings or friends receive something—a gift or a favor—it sparked a competitive desire to have the same thing. If some object or person was not desired by others, we tended to see it as something indifferent or distasteful—there must be something wrong with it. This becomes a lifelong pattern. For some it is more overt. In relationships they are interested only in men or women who are already taken, who are clearly desired by a third party. Their desire is to take away this loved object, to triumph over the other person, a dynamic that most certainly has roots in their childhood. If other people are making money through some new gimmick, they want not only to participate but to corner the market. For others it is subtler. They see people possessing something that seems exciting, and their desire is not to take but to share and participate in the experience. In either direction, when we see people or things desired by others, it drives up their value. You must learn how to exploit this. If you can somehow create the impression that others desire you or your work, you will pull people into your current without having to say a word or impose yourself. They will come to you. You must strive to surround yourself with this social aura, or at least create the illusion. You can create this effect in several ways. You manage it so that your object is seen or heard everywhere, even encouraging piracy if necessary, as Chanel did. You don’t directly intervene. This will

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

  Reply to Objection 1: We read in the Gospels how Christ “took the bread . . . and the chalice”; but it is not to be understood that He took them merely into His hands, as some say. but that He took them in the same way as He gave them to others to take. Hence when He said to the disciples, “Take ye and eat,” and again, “Take ye and drink,” it is to be understood that He Himself, in taking it, both ate and drank. Hence some have composed this rhyme: “The King at supper sits, The twelve as guests He greets, Clasping Himself in His hands, The food Himself now eats.” Reply to Objection 2: As was said above ([4664]Q[76], A[5]), Christ as contained under this sacrament stands in relation to place, not according to His own dimensions, but according to the dimensions of the sacramental species; so that Christ is Himself in every place where those species are. And because the species were able to be both in the hands and the mouth of Christ, the entire Christ could be in both His hands and mouth. Now this could not come to pass were His relation to place to be according to His proper dimensions. Reply to Objection 3: As was stated above ([4665]Q[79], A[1], ad 2), the effect of this sacrament is not merely an increase of habitual grace, but furthermore a certain actual delectation of spiritual sweetness. But although grace was not increased in Christ through His receiving this sacrament, yet He had a certain spiritual delectation from the new institution of this sacrament. Hence He Himself said (Lk. 22:15): “With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you,” which words Eusebius explains of the new mystery of the New Testament, which He gave to the disciples. And therefore He ate it both spiritually and sacramentally, inasmuch as He received His own body under the sacrament which sacrament of His own body He both understood and prepared; yet differently from others who partake of it both sacramentally and spiritually, for these receive an increase of grace, and they have need of the sacramental signs for perceiving its truth. Whether Christ gave His body to Judas?Objection 1: It seems that Christ did not give His body to Judas. Because, as we read (Mat. 26:29), our Lord, after giving His body and blood to the disciples, said to them: “I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father.” From this it appears that those to whom He had given His body and blood were to drink of it again with Him. But Judas did not drink of it afterwards with Him. Therefore he did not receive Christ’s body and blood with the other disciples.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  But any sense of order had been lost, the parks had been paved over, new buildings had sprung up in every empty space. Cars were parked on sidewalks, in the little alleys between buildings, on both sides of the road; drivers had to thread their way through the streets single file, cells in a clogged artery. He walked ahead, not speaking or looking back, moving quickly because of the rain, though maybe it was eagerness too, I thought, maybe he felt the excitement I felt, the blood rushing to my groin. I’ll use you hard, I had written, after he told me what he wanted, get ready, I’ll make you take it. It isn’t easy to find men who will say that, the idea of it frightens them or turns them off; when finally I found someone to say it to me there was excitement but also gratitude and relief, maybe he was feeling that. Even in his hoodie it was clear how slim he was, he kept his hands in the pockets at the front and pulled the fabric tight around him, showing off his frame, and he wore tight jeans that advertised his legs and ass, which I found myself watching as we walked. It was the only condition I had set, that I didn’t want to come in his ass; I want to shoot in your mouth, I had said, in your mouth and on your face. Really I wasn’t sure I wanted to fuck him at all, I worried about disease, and the longer I fucked him the more danger there would be. Danger for him, too; I got tested every six months but I wasn’t always careful, I wasn’t fanatically safe. On his profile he had chosen the third option, not negative or positive but don’t know, and in the text he had said he didn’t care about status, anyone was welcome, he didn’t want to know. People always lie, he would say to me later, why bother to ask, why should I believe them, why should I care. His apartment was on the ground floor of a poorly maintained building, ten or twelve stories of discolored concrete, the façade run through with cracks.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Dobre, he said when he had finished, good, though he was speaking of his own work now and not of me. He took up the larger chain again and pulled it tight, twisting his wrist to gather up the slack, which he wrapped around his curled fingers until they were nearly flush against my neck. He was putting me on a short leash, I thought, though I was thinking more of his cock, which I was eager for now, perhaps because of the pain at my chest, which was more than pain, which was excitement too, as was the tightness of the chain around my neck, in which I felt the strength of his arm keeping me from what I wanted. Whatever chemical change desire is had taken hold and I was lit up with it, so that after all I did strain against the leash, he had been right to make it so short. It was a kind of disobedience but a kind he would like, and even as he tightened his grip on the chain I heard him laugh or almost laugh, a slow satisfied chuckle. It was a sound of approval and I glowed with it. She wants something, he said, still chuckling, and he lifted his foot to my crotch, feeling my erection as I knelt before him, she likes it, and then he used his foot to pull my cock down, letting it go so that it snapped back up, making me flinch. Then his foot moved lower and he placed his toes beneath my balls, which he fondled roughly, flexing his ankle until there was not quite pain but an intimation of pain. He was dulling my pleasure, I thought, not removing it entirely but taking off its edge.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I pulled off my own clothes at the door, I left them and walked to the bedroom naked. He was on his back, one of his arms across his face, as if to block the light from his eyes, though there wasn’t any light, or hardly any. The curtains were drawn across the windows, not the heavy drapes but the gauze that obscured the interior from view, my building was surrounded by others, someone might always be watching. I lay down next to him. He was beautiful in the dark, his form a deeper shadow beside me, his olive skin and the dense compactness of him, he was the most beautiful, I thought, as I had thought before. I didn’t touch him, we lay silent for a moment until finally I spoke, whispering Skupi, are you all right, talk to me, say something; and though he didn’t say anything he did make a noise, a small noise of desire or grief, I couldn’t tell which, and then he reached over and pulled me to him, my face first and then as we kissed the rest of me, his hands urged me to move until I was on top of him. It felt like passion, his mouth and his hands on me, it felt like the hunger I was still amazed I could arouse in him. He pressed his pelvis into me, making me feel that he was hard, as I was, his eyes were squeezed shut and his face wore an expression I couldn’t read, and then I pressed down and his lips parted and he made a sound that was unmistakably of pleasure, I thought. He pulled my face to his again, he slid his tongue into my mouth and drew out my own, which he caught with his lips and teeth, biting it almost to the point of pain. All the while he was making a sound I had never heard from him before, a series of short moans, almost pants, and as we kissed and pressed against each other he lifted his knees up on either side of me, as if to wrap them around me, as if to embrace me with all four of his limbs, though that’s not what he did, instead he shifted his hips up. I was confused, it was a reversal of our roles, I had never fucked him before, but when I whispered Are you sure the strange sounds he made intensified, in frequency and volume both. I lifted myself off him and reached to the side table to take a condom from the drawer, but as I tore the little package with my teeth I heard R. say No, and when I said What, taken aback, he said it again, more clearly, No, and though I hesitated I set it aside.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  THE LITTLE SAINTHis name meant light, or that was the root of it, the root too of the word for holy, for any number of words associated with sanctity and the church; and this was why later, when I grew fond of him, I called him Svetcheto, the little saint. It made him laugh, both because it was bad Bulgarian, he told me, no one who actually spoke the language would say it, and also because he liked it, I thought, not the name but that I had made it up for him. I liked it too, not least because it was so at odds with the things we did together, with how I used him or how we used each other. And maybe there actually was something saintly about him, his slightness and quiet in the hoodie that framed his face like a monk’s cowl when I saw him that first time, or in the bathrobe he wrapped around himself later, when I came to his door; and maybe there was something saintly in his endurance, too, I guess I think there was, in his desire for pain. But that first day I didn’t know his name, I thought probably I would never see him again. We had chatted online for the first time just an hour or so earlier, though I had looked at his profile often; he was always online, for months I had been fascinated by him. It was a kind of profile common enough in the States or Western Europe but I had never seen one like it here; it claimed that anyone who wanted to could fuck him, that he wanted it rough, that his only demand was to be fucked bare, he wanted as many loads as he could get. No limits whore, it said, in good pornographic English, with a Bulgarian translation beneath. I was curious to know what that meant here, no limits, and where he had learned it. Many of the things he listed were things I wanted, too, what I liked to be done to me, which is why I took so long to write him; we wanted the same things and so were incompatible, as people say. Maybe I came to be excited by the thought of doing to him what others had done to me, what in those weeks or months I had wanted done more often and to greater extremes. Maybe it happened slowly but it seemed sudden, the desire I felt for the boy whose photos appeared in little boxes that accompanied his profile, in one his face twisted in an erotic grimace, in another three fingers, his own, inserted in his ass.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He spread his legs a little, revealing his asshole, which was hairless and clean, beautiful, and which moved gently, maybe he wasn’t aware of it, it tightened and relaxed like the mouth of some primitive creature, all appetite. I placed my thumb over it and he moaned again and tightened it more, so that it kissed me, almost, or made as if to swallow me, it invited me in. Even without lube it was easy to enter him, he relaxed and took my thumb to the first knuckle without any strain at all, and then he tightened again around me. He pushed back, tilting his pelvis slightly. But I couldn’t go deeper, or not easily, I could only apply pressure in and out, encouraging his own movement, his rocking back and forth. But it wasn’t enough, for him or for me. He stopped sucking me when I pulled my thumb free, raising his head and looking back, and then opening his mouth for my thumb, which he sucked at eagerly, as he did the first two fingers of the same hand when I presented them, taking both at the same time, moving his head to take them deeper, as far as they would reach. I lifted my head to spit on his hole, rubbing it in a way meant to give pleasure, and then gave him my whole thumb, to the second joint, and then, since he had taken it so easily, immediately starting his back and forth motion, I inserted my first two fingers at once, together, not quite gently, pressing them in a single motion to the base. This gave him pause, he arched his back, taking a moment before he began to fuck himself again, fucking himself at both ends, pressing back on my fingers and then diving down on my cock. I pressed forward as he moved back, withdrew to the second knuckle or even the first when he moved forward, each of us meeting the other in our movement until it became a single movement, a movement meant for his pleasure though there was something savage in it, too, the way he moaned when on every third or fourth thrust I twisted my wrist, stretching him; he made a sound that wasn’t as sharp as a cry but that wasn’t entirely of pleasure, I liked making him make that sound. I could feel him moving against me, not just forward and back but pressing around my fingers as well, making himself tighter and then giving way. He was showing me what he could do, I thought, how good he was at getting fucked.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  This gave him pause, he arched his back, taking a moment before he began to fuck himself again, fucking himself at both ends, pressing back on my fingers and then diving down on my cock. I pressed forward as he moved back, withdrew to the second knuckle or even the first when he moved forward, each of us meeting the other in our movement until it became a single movement, a movement meant for his pleasure though there was something savage in it, too, the way he moaned when on every third or fourth thrust I twisted my wrist, stretching him; he made a sound that wasn’t as sharp as a cry but that wasn’t entirely of pleasure, I liked making him make that sound. I could feel him moving against me, not just forward and back but pressing around my fingers as well, making himself tighter and then giving way. He was showing me what he could do, I thought, how good he was at getting fucked. He had meant every word of it, what he had said about himself online, I wasn’t sure I had ever met anyone who embodied so fully his fantasy of himself. I thought of all the men who had fucked him, adding a third finger to the two already inside, feeling again that strange tenderness for him, even as I twisted my hand to give him the pain he wanted, as I thrust my hips up to gag him. Why should I care who fucks me, he would say to me later, why should I say no to anybody, I don’t want to say no. Why shouldn’t I give it away, his body, he meant, what could I do with it that would be better? I like for guys to fuck me, who cares if they’re ugly or old, I hate all that, people who think they’re so special nobody deserves to fuck them. Why should you have to deserve it, he would say, his head on my chest, who doesn’t deserve a little fucking? I think we should all give it away, wouldn’t it be wonderful, everyone fucking all the time, everywhere, I would love it, and I laughed, I said I would too, it would be my version of heaven. And when I asked him if he worried about disease he said Fuck worrying, I hate it, I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to live forever, I’d rather live ten years the way I want than live forever and be miserable, I want to be happy. I don’t care about being safe, he said, I don’t care if I get sick, why should I be special, and I wondered what feeling he was speaking from, whether it was joy or defiance or despair, I wanted to know where one ended and the others began. I wanted to argue with him, but I didn’t argue, what would have been the use, and anyway to argue with him would have been to lay claim to him somehow, to violate his ethics of claimlessness. Because it was an ethics, I thought as I lay with him, it was more coherent than my own life, with its alternating precaution and risk; I tried to imagine his life of wholeheartedness but I knew it would never be mine.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  When I began to rise he snapped Dolu , stay down, and I moved across the space on all fours, the carpet featureless and gray and coarse. When I reached him he took my hair in his hand and lifted me up onto my knees, not roughly, maybe just as a means of communication more efficient than speech. I had told him I wasn’t Bulgarian in one of our online chats, warning him that when we met there might be things I wouldn’t understand, but he had asked none of the usual questions, he seemed not to care why I had come to his country, where so few come and fewer still stay long enough to learn the language, which is spoken nowhere else, which even here, as the country shrinks, is spoken by fewer people each day; it’s not difficult to imagine it disappearing altogether, the language and the country both. We’ll understand each other, he had said, don’t worry, and maybe it was just to ensure this understanding that he had taken me in hand, firmly but not painfully guiding me to my knees. He let go of my hair then, freeing his hand to move down the side of my face, almost stroking it before he cupped it in his palm. It was a tender gesture, and his voice was tender too as he said Kuchko , addressing me as if solicitously and tilting my head so that we gazed at each other face to face; his fingers flexed against my cheek, almost in a caress. I leaned my head into him, resting it on his palm as he spoke again in that tone of tenderness or solicitude, Tell me, kuchko , tell me what you want. And I did tell him, at first slowly and with the usual words, reciting the script that both does and does not express my desires; and then I spoke more quickly and more searchingly, drawn forward by the tone of his voice, what seemed like tenderness although it was not tenderness, until I found myself suddenly in some recess or depth where I had never been.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He lay on me for some time, not moving or rather moving only to press me down, to ease out my pain and my will; he spread his length along mine, reaching until his hands were at my hands, coaxing free the fingers I had curled, and his feet found their place at my ankles, and then it was as if with his whole body he eased me, stretching and relaxing me at once. It was a delicious feeling, and again I admired his skill, how well he knew his instrument, how much I would take and how to bring me back from it. He was gentle, as he lay there he spoke to me, crooning almost, calling to me again Kuchko, the term of abuse that had become our endearment, spokoino, he said, relax, be calm. And I obeyed him, I could feel that fluid ache drain as he lay on top of me, moving just slightly, pressing me down and at the same time stretching me, pulling tenderly on each of my limbs, though soon his movement became something else. He had remained hard, though my own excitement had waned, had flowed out as the pain flowed in; and now it was his hardness I felt, he ground it into me, making my excitement return, not all at once but like an increasing pressure that provoked its own movement in response, a movement of my hips upward just slightly and back. It was a suggestion of movement, really, all that was permitted by his bulk on top of me, but it was enough to make him laugh again, that low, quiet, satisfied laugh I heard against my ear. Iska li neshto, he said, does she want something, and I did, I wanted something very much. He was moving more now, not just grinding but lifting his hips, which shifted his weight to his knees, which dug into the hollows of my own knees and pinned me more insistently down. He began to move more forcefully, rubbing the length of himself against me, and I could hear his breath quicken with the effort of it. Then he lifted himself more, and without moving his hands from my wrists he positioned his cock to fuck me, though he couldn’t fuck me, I thought, he was dry and had done nothing to prepare me, with his hands or his mouth, and I felt myself tighten against him as he pressed forward, moving not violently but insistently. Wait, I said, speaking the word I had almost said before, wait, I’m not ready, but he said again spokoino, relax, be calm, he didn’t try to enter me now but fell back to that insistent rubbing. He spoke softly as he rose again, crooningly, You’re ready, he said, you want it, open to gospodar. Ne, I said, ne, wait, you need a condom, using the word gumichka, little rubber.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I took off my own clothes quickly and then launched myself on top of him, which made him flinch and laugh, just once and as if against his will. I caught myself with my hands and when he reached out his own hands, bracing them against my chest, I grabbed them one by one at the wrist and pinned them above his head. He made a noise at this, a little growl, interested and interrogative, as I ground against him, his cock harder now, mine fully hard. I lowered my face but dodged his kiss again, teasing him, and instead kissed his collarbone, first one side and then the other, and then the inside of his arm, just below the elbow, where I knew he was ticklish, and then I licked the pit of his arm, slowly, because I loved the taste of him, first the right and then the left, and he growled again. He was harder now, he pressed his hips up against mine, but I lifted myself off him, beyond his reach. He moaned in frustration, he tried to pull his hands free but I held them firm; Porta-te bem, I said to him, and then I did kiss him, I put my tongue in his mouth and he sucked at it hard, tasting me but tasting himself, too, that was what he loved, the taste of himself in my mouth. I broke off the kiss and dipped my head to his chest, kissing first one nipple and then the other, which he didn’t really like, he tolerated it, and then to go farther I had to let go of his wrists, which didn’t matter, he kept them obediently above his head. I kissed his ribs and then his stomach, always one side and then the other, keeping a symmetrical pattern, keeping it at his pelvis, too, pressing my lips to his right hip and his left but avoiding his cock, moving quickly. He made a noise of complaint but kept his arms where I had left them, still playing our game. He jerked a little when I kissed the inside of his thighs, he was sensitive there, too, but he didn’t try to stop me, he was being good, he let me do what I wanted. But I wasn’t sure what I wanted, or what I wanted had changed. I had thought I wanted to make him laugh, that after that I wanted sex, but I didn’t want sex, I realized, or not only sex. I had let my knees drop off the end of the bed as I moved lower, soon I was kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed. He was relaxed, more or less, his legs were outstretched, his feet splayed to either side, but his whole body tensed when he felt my lips on the sole of his foot, which he snatched away, I had to grab it and pull it back.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He was dressed like a young man, too, in jeans and a worn T-shirt, his face rough with two or three days’ stubble and glistening just slightly with sweat, as mine was, even with the windows open it was hot in the car. He glanced at me every now and again, his eyes not holding mine. Vizh, he said then, look, I understand them, it’s impossible to live a normal life in Bulgaria, I mean if you want to follow the laws, pay your taxes, you can’t survive here and be honest, only criminals survive. I don’t mean you don’t go to expensive restaurants or bars, you don’t have a good time, I mean you can’t put food on the table, you can’t have a normal life. I want to live like that, do you understand, I want to live in a normal country. We had gotten past the Pliska Hotel finally, where all the buses stop, the traffic was heavy still but moving. So I understand the protesters, there need to be protests, this government needs to disappear—but there’s nowhere to turn, the politicians, vsichki sa pedali, he said, they’re all faggots. He hadn’t asked me anything during the ride, none of the usual questions about who I was or where I was from, he couldn’t be sure how much of what he said I understood. But it didn’t matter, he was talking for his own benefit, I thought, for his own relief. We slowed again to a stop and he gave a low whistle as he looked at the traffic, which was completely jammed ahead near Levski Stadium, where the boulevard we were on crossed another by the little river that ran through Sofia, cordoned off in a concrete canal. It was called Perlovska, the pearly river, which made me laugh, since it was a drainage ditch, really, almost an open sewer; it was only called Perlovska on maps, nobody used the name in real life.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was a beautiful night, the nearly full moon casting its light upon the water, and I wanted to be with them now, these people I hardly knew who seemed so at ease with one another. I took off my shoes and walked up to N., our erstwhile guide, who was smoking a cigarette, standing well away from the surf where the others were wading, letting the waves brush their ankles and calves, shouting and laughing. Hi, he said, smiling at me, speaking in English though my Bulgarian was better, it is beautiful here, no? And I said it was, very much so, prekrasno. He asked me about the morning’s workshop, and I told him it was fine, that they were interesting writers, I liked them very much. And how was the Bulgarian group, I asked, and he turned to me, smiling widely, and said Today we talked about the G-spot of the story, how it is like with a woman, it is difficult to make the story come. Ah, I said, taken aback, I see. And then, after a pause, But I don’t understand, I said, why should the story be a woman? It was a fair question, I thought, but he looked at me with blank incomprehension, even though I had spoken in his language. Couldn’t it be a man, I asked, would it change anything, and I thought he was going to say something in response, but then our attention was claimed by a commotion farther down the beach. What’s that, I said as we started walking toward the others, who had gathered in a circle, what’s going on, and then, as we heard whistles and catcalls and voices chanting strip, strip, N. told me that the priest had said he wanted to swim. We could see him now, already bare-chested, his bearded face bright in the light of cell phone cameras brought out of pockets. Immediately, catching sight of him, I felt myself in that strange state of vibrancy and stasis, like a flame submerged in glass, sealed off as always when I feel desire I shouldn’t feel. Not that he was so desirable: he was thin and pale, with a silver cross glinting on his chest. His hand drifted to his jeans and he paused, letting the encouragement rise, looking around the circle until he found D., eager as the rest, hooting and calling Take it off, and with a look that seemed to dedicate the act to her, the whole evening, the night and the sea, he undid the buttons of his fly and stripped. There was an eruption of cheers, and he began playing to the crowd, lifting his arms and flexing, smiling at the flashing lights; he was entirely one with them now, I thought, all his sanctity was gone. He wasn’t naked, he was still wearing a pair of tight black briefs, and I was surprised to see they were a designer brand, sleek and European, not at all what I would have expected. He posed for a moment, balanced on his skinny legs, and then he turned his back to us and ran for the water, splashing at first awkwardly and then diving in, fully submerged. Jesus, I said to no one in particular, it must be so cold. He’s crazy, N. said beside me, and then, three weeks ago he is in Israel, the Holy Land, and he swims in the river Jordan. It is forbidden to swim, but he doesn’t care, he swims anyway. We watched him for a while before most of the group lost interest, turning to other pursuits, pouring the last of the wine. D. and the Bulgarian woman climbed the tall lifeguard’s platform together, waving to us below. But I kept watching him, visible in the moonlight; he was a good swimmer, he seemed at home in the water, I thought, like a creature reconciled to what it was. I kept waiting for him to turn, to swim back, but he didn’t, and finally in the dark I could hardly make him out at all. He’s kind of far, isn’t he, I said aloud, again to no one in particular, shouldn’t he be turning around, and then N., who hadn’t been paying attention, said Idiot, it’s dangerous at night, and both of us shouted for him to come back. He didn’t hear us at first, he kept swimming, and then the others were shouting too, in English and Bulgarian, and all of us were waving our arms. He stopped finally, and waved one of his own arms in response, and then he began swimming toward shore, more slowly, I thought, as though there were some force pulling back at him, some element working to bear him out farther still.