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 167 of 344 · 20 per page

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Oh, you wise boy!” she laughed, “don’t you see you are skipping the time I most desire you, and that’s not kind to either of us; is it?” “There’s still another way of evasion”, I said, “get me to withdraw before I come the first time, or get up immediately and syringe yourself with water thoroughly: water kills my seed as soon as it touches it—” “But how will that help if you go on half a dozen times more?” she asked. “Doctors say,” I replied, “that what comes from me afterwards is not virile enough to impregnate a woman: I’ll explain the process to you if you like; but you can take it, the fact is as I state it.” “When did you learn all this?” she asked. “It has been my most engrossing study,” I laughed, “and by far the most pleasureful!” “You dear, dear,” she cried, “I must kiss you for that.” “Do you know you kiss wonderfully?” she went on reflectingly, “with a lingering touch of the inside of the lips and then the thrust of the tongue: that’s what excited me so the first time” and she sighed as if delighted with the memory. “You didn’t seem excited,” I said half reproachfully, “for when I wanted another kiss, you drew away and said ‘tomorrow’! Why are women so coquettish, so perverse?” I added, remembering Lucille and Jessie. “I think it is that we wish to be sure of being desired,” she replied, “and a little too that we want to prolong the joy of it, the delight of being wanted, really wanted! It is so easy for us to give and so exquisite to feel a man’s desire pursuing us! Ah how rare it is”, she sighed passionately, “and how quickly lost! You’ll soon tire of your mistress”, she added, “now that I am all yours and thrill only for you” and she took my head in her hands and kissed me passionately, regretfully. “You kiss better than I do, Lorna! Where did you acquire the art, Madame?” I asked, “I fear that you have been a naughty, naughty girl!” “If you only knew the truth,” she exclaimed, “if you only knew how girls long for a lover and burn and itch in vain and wonder why men are so stupid and cold and dull as not to see our desire.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I soon got my arm round her and kept kissing her till she told me she had never known a man so greedy of kisses as I was. It was delicious flattery to me to speak of me as a man and in return I raved about her eyes and mouth and form; caressing her left breast I told her I could divine the rest and knew she had a lovely body. But when I put my hand up her clothes, she stopped me when I got just above her knee and said: “We’d have to be engaged before I could let you do that. Do you really love me?” Of course I swore I did, but when she said she’d have to tell her father that we were engaged to be married, cold shivers went down my back. “I can’t marry for a long time yet”, I said, “I’ll have to make a living first and I’m not very sure where I’ll begin.” But she had heard that an old man wished to adopt me and everyone said that he was very rich, and even her father admitted that I’d be “well fixed.” Meanwhile my right hand was busy: I had got my fingers to her warm flesh between the stockings and the drawers and was wild with desire; soon mouth on mouth I touched her sex. What a gorgeous afternoon we had! I had learned enough now to go slow and obey what seemed to be her moods. Gently, gently I caressed her sex with my finger till it opened and she leaned against me and kissed me of her own will, while her eyes turned up and her whole being was lost in thrills of ecstasy. When she asked me to stop and take my hand away, I did her bidding at once and was rewarded by being told that I was a “dear boy” and “a sweet” and soon the embracing and caressing began again. She moved now in response to my lascivious touchings and when the ecstasy came on her, she clasped me close and kissed me passionately with hot lips and afterwards in my arms wept a little and then pouted that she was cross with me for being so naughty. But her eyes gave themselves to me even while she tried to scold. The dinner bell rang and she said she’d have to go, and we made a meeting for afterwards on the top deck; but as she was getting up, she yielded again to my hand with a little sigh and I found her sex all wet, wet! She got down out of the boat by the main rigging and I waited a few moments before following her. At first our caution seemed likely to be rewarded, chiefly, I have thought since, because everyone believed me to be too young and too small to be taken seriously. But everything is quickly known on seaboard at least by the sailors.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Not at once, eh?” she pouted, “talk to me first. I want to know how you are?” and I drew her to the big armchair and sat down with her in my arms. “What am I to tell you?” I asked, while my hand went up her dress to her warm thighs and sex. She frowned but I kissed her lips and with a movement or two stretched her out on me so that I could use my finger easily. At once her lips grew hot and I went on kissing and caressing till her eyes closed and she gave herself to the pleasure. Suddenly she wound herself upon me and gave me a big kiss. “You don’t talk”, she said. “I can’t”, I exclaimed, making up my mind. “Come”, and I lifted her to her feet and took her into the bedroom. “I’m crazy for you”, I said, “take off your clothes, please.” She resisted a little but when I began loosening her dress, she helped me and took it off. Her knickers, I noticed, were new. They soon fell off and she stood in her chemise and black stockings. “That’s enough, isn’t it?” she said, “Mr. Curious”, and she drew the chemise tight about her. “No”, I cried, “beauty must unveil, please!” The next moment the chemise slipping down caught for a moment on her hips and then slid circling round her feet. Her nakedness stopped my heart; desire blinded me: my arms went round her, straining her soft form to me: in a moment I had lifted her on to the bed, pulling the bed clothes back at the same time. The foolish phrase of being in bed together deluded me: I had no idea that she was more in my power just lying on the edge of the bed; in a moment I had torn off my clothes and boots and got in beside her. Our warm bodies lay together: a thousand hot pulses beating in us: soon I separated her legs and lying on her tried to put my sex into hers, but she drew away almost at once. “O—O, it hurts” she murmured and each time I tried to push my sex in, her “O’s” of pain stopped me.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  For the first time in my life I notice here that the writer’s art is not only inferior to reality in keenness of sensation and emotion; but also more same, monotonous even, because incapable of showing the tiny, yet ineffable differences of the same feeling which difference of personality brings with it. I seem to be repeating myself in describing Kate’s love after Mrs. Mayhew’s, making the girl’s feelings a fainter replica of the woman’s. In reality the two were completely different. Mrs. Mayhew’s feelings long repressed flamed with the heat of an afternoon in July or August; while in Kate’s one felt the freshness and cool of a summer morning, shot through with the suggestion of heat to come. And this comparison even is inept because it leaves out of the account, the effect of Kate’s beauty, the great hazel eyes, the rosied skin, the superb figure. Besides there was a glamour of the spirit about Kate: Lorna Mayhew would never give me a new note that didn’t spring from passion; in Kate I felt a spiritual personality and the thrill of undeveloped possibilities. And still using my utmost skill, I haven’t shown my reader the enormous superiority of the girl and her more unselfish love. But I haven’t finished yet. Smith had given me “The Mill on the Floss” to read; I had never tried George Eliot before and I found that this book almost deserved Smith’s praise. I had read till about one o’clock when my heart heard her; or was it some thrill of expectance? The next moment my door opened and she came in with the mane of hair about her shoulders and a long dressing gown reaching to her stockinged feet. I got up like a flash; but she had already closed the door and bolted it; I drew her to the bed and stopped her from throwing off the dressing-gown: “let me take off your stockings first”, I whispered, “I want you all imprinted on me!” The next moment, she stood there naked, the flickering flame of the candle throwing quaint arabesques of light and shade on her beautiful ivory body: I gazed and gazed: from the navel down she was perfect; I turned her round and the back too, the bottom even was faultless though large; but alas! the breasts were far too big for beauty, too soft to excite! I must think only of the bold curve of her hips, I reflected, the splendor of the firm thighs, the flesh of which had the hard outline of marble and her—sex? I put her on the bed and opened her thighs: her pussy was ideally perfect. At once I wanted to get into her; but she pleaded: “please, dear, come into bed: I’m cold and want you.” So in I got and began kissing her.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I cannot eat in her presence. But I am calm outwardly, with that Oriental placidity of bearing that is so deceptive. She drinks and smokes. She is quite mad, in a sense, subject to fears and manias. Her talk, mostly unconscious, would be revealing to an analyst, but I cannot analyze it. It is mostly lies. The contents of her imagination are realities to her. But what is she building so carefully? An aggrandizement of her personality, a fortifying and glorifying of it. In the obvious and enveloping warmth of my admiration she expands. She seems at once destructive and helpless. I want to protect her. What a joke! I, protect her whose power is infinite. Her power is so strong that I actually believe it when she tells me her destructiveness is unintentional. Has she tried to destroy me? No, she walked into my house and I was willing to endure any pain from her hands. If there is any calculation in her, it comes only afterwards, when she becomes aware of her power and wonders how she should use it. I do not think her evil potency is directed. Even she is baffled by it. I have her in myself now as one to be pitied and protected. She is involved in perversities and tragedies she cannot live up to. I have at last caught her weakness. Her life is full of fantasies. I want to force her into reality. I want to do violence to her. I, who am sunk in dreams, in half-lived acts, see myself possessed by a furious intention: I want to grasp June’s evasive hands, oh, with what strength, take her to a hotel room and realize her dream and mine, a dream she has evaded facing all her life. I went to see Eduardo, tense and shattered by my three hours with June. He saw the weakness in her and urged me to act out my strength. I could hardly think clearly because in the taxi she had pressed my hand. I was not ashamed of my adoration, my humility. Her gesture was not sincere. I do not believe she could love. She says she wants to keep the rose dress I wore the first night she saw me. When I tell her I want to give her a going-away present, she says she wants some of that

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “But how did you do it!” we wanted to know and he gave us his whole experience. “Girls love kissing,” he said, “and so I kissed and kissed her and put my leg on her, and her hand on my cock and I kept touching her breasts and her cunny (that’s what she calls it) and at last I got on her between her legs and she guided my prick into her cunt (God it was wonderful!) and now I go with her every night and often in the day as well. She likes her cunt touched, but very gently”, he added, “she showed me how to do it with one finger like this” and he suited the action to the word. Strangways in a moment became to us not only a hero but a miracle-man; we pretended not to believe him in order to make him tell us more, but in our hearts we knew he was telling us the truth, and we were almost crazy with breathless desire. I got him to invite me up to the Vicarage and I saw Mary the nurse-girl there, and she seemed to me almost a woman and spoke to him as “Master Will” and he kissed her, though she frowned and said “Leave off” and “Behave yourself”, very angrily; but I felt that her anger was put on to prevent my guessing the truth. I was aflame with desire and when I told Howard, he, too, burned with lust, and took me out for a walk and questioned me all over again and, under a haystack in the country we gave ourselves to a bout of frigging which for the first time thrilled me with pleasure. All the time we were playing with ourselves I kept thinking of Mary’s hot slit, as Strangways had described it, and at length a real orgasm came and shook me; the imagining had intensified my delight. Nothing in my life up to that moment was comparable in joy to that story of sexual pleasure as described, and acted for us, by Strangways. MY FATHER. Father was coming: I was sick with fear: he was so strict and loved to punish. On the ship he had beaten me with a strap because I had gone forward and listened to the sailors talking smut: I feared him and disliked him ever since I saw him once come aboard drunk.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I used to illustrate the absurdity of our present system of educating the young by a quaint simile. “When training me to shoot”, I said, “my earthly father gave me a little single-barreled gun, and when he saw that I had learned the mechanism and could be trusted, he gave me a double-barreled shot-gun. After some years I came into possession of a magazine gun which could shoot half a dozen times if necessary without reloading, my efficiency increasing with my knowledge.” My Creator, or Heavenly Father, on the other hand, when I was wholly without experience and had only just entered my teens, gave me, so to speak, a magazine gun of sex, and hardly had I learned its use and enjoyment when he took it away from me forever, and gave me in its place a double-barreled gun: after a few years, he took that away and gave me a single-barreled gun with which I was forced to content myself for the best part of my life. Towards the end the old single-barrel began to show signs of wear and age: sometimes it would go off too soon, sometimes it missed fire and shamed me, do what I would. I want to teach youths how to use their magazine gun of sex so that it may last for years, and when they come to the double-barrel, how to take such care that the good weapon will do them liege service right into their fifties, and the single-barrel will then give them pleasure up to three score years and ten. Moreover, not only do I desire in this way to increase the sum of happiness in the world while decreasing the pains and disabilities of men, but I wish also to set an example and encourage other writers to continue the work that I am sure is beneficent, as well as enjoyable.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  When she returned a few weeks later, I felt as if she were new and unknown and I had to win her again; but as soon as my hand touched her sex, the strangeness disappeared and she gave herself to me with renewed zest. I teased her to tell me just what she felt and at length she consented. “Begin with the first time” I begged, “and then tell what you felt in Kansas City.” “It will be very hard”, she said, “I’d rather write it for you.” “That’ll do just as well”, I replied, and here is the story she sent me the next day. “I think the first time you had me,” she began “I felt more curiosity than desire: I had so often tried to picture it all to myself. When I saw your sex, I was astonished, for it looked very big to me and I wondered whether you could really get it into my sex which I knew was just big enough for my finger to go in. Still I did want to feel your sex pushing into me, and your kisses and the touch of your hand on my sex made me even more eager. When you slipped the head of your sex into mine, it hurt dreadfully; it was almost like a knife cutting into me, but the pain for some reason seemed to excite me and I pushed forward so as to get you further in me; I think that’s what broke my maidenhead. At first I was disappointed because I felt no thrill, only the pain; but when my sex became all wet and open and yours could slip in and out easily, I began to feel real pleasure. I liked the slow movement best; it excited me to feel the head of your sex just touching the lips of mine and when you pushed in slowly all the way, it gave me a gasp of breathless delight; when you drew your sex out, I wanted to hold it in me. And the longer you kept on, the more pleasure you gave me. For hours afterwards my sex was sensitive; if I rubbed it ever so gently, it would begin to itch and burn.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  It will be six or seven years at least before I shall know whether the book is good and life-worthy or not and yet need drives me to publish it at once. Did not Horace require nine years to judge his work? I, therefore, want the reader to know my intention; I want to give him the key, so to speak, to this chamber of my soul. First of all I wished to destroy or, at least, to qualify the universal opinion that love in youth is all romance and idealism. The masters all paint it crowned with roses of illusion: Juliet is only fourteen: Romeo, having lost his love, refuses life: Goethe follows Shakespeare in his Mignon and Marguerite: even the great humorist Heine and the so-called realist, Balzac, adopt the same convention. Yet to me it is absolutely untrue in regard to the male in boyhood and early youth, say from thirteen to twenty: the sex-urge, the lust of the flesh was so overwhelming in me that I was conscious only of desire. When the rattlesnake’s poison-bag is full, he strikes at everything that moves, even the blades of grass; the poor brute is blinded and in pain with the overplus. In my youth I was blind, too, through excess of semen. I often say that I was thirty-five years of age before I saw an ugly woman, a woman that is, whom I didn’t desire. In early puberty, all women tempted me; and all girls still more poignantly. From twenty to twenty-three, I began to distinguish qualities of the mind and heart and soul; to my amazement, I preferred Kate to Lily, though Lily gave me keener sensations: Rose excited me very little yet I knew she was of rarer, finer quality than even Sophy who seemed to me an unequalled bedfellow. From that time on the charms of spirit, heart and soul, drew me with ever-increasing magnetism, overpowering the pleasures of the senses though plastic beauty exercises as much fascination over me today as it did fifty years ago. I never knew the illusion of love, the rose-mist of passion till I was twenty-seven and I was intoxicated with it for years; but that story will be for my second volume. Now strange to say, my loves till I left America just taught me as much of the refinements of passion, as is commonly known in these States. France and Greece made me wise to all that Europe has to teach; that deeper knowledge too is for the second volume in which I shall relate how a French girl surpassed Sophy’s art as far as Sophy surpassed Rose’s ingenuous yielding.

• From Vox (1992)

  140 his shorts and poured about a tablespoonful of oil in there." "No kidding!" "Yes, well, he looked at me with shock. And I know I wouldn't have been able to do it if they hadn't really been my own shorts that I'd lent him. I said, 'I'm awfully sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. Take those off and I'll see if I have another pair. ' So he marched that peculiar march that men do as they are taking off their pants. He was not erect by any means, but he wasn't dormant either. I said, 'Did the olive oil feel warm?' And he said, 'Yes.' So I said, 'Would you like some more?' and he said, 'Maybe.' So I held the mouth of the bottle right where his pubic hair bushed out, high on his cock, I mean near the base, not near the tip, because he was still drooping down, and I tipped it as if to pour it over him, but I didn't actually let any come out. I just held it there. And the expectation of the warmth of the oil made his cock rise a little. I tipped the bottle even more, so that the olive oil was right in the neck, ready to pour out, but still I didn't actually pour it. And his erection rose a little more, wanting the oil. It was like some kind of stage lévitation. His hands were in little boyish fists at his sides. When he was almost horizontal, but still angling slightly downward, suddenly I poured the entire rest of the bottle over him, just glug glug glug glug glug, so that it flowed down its full cock length and fell with a buzzing sound onto the bathtub. And this was not a trivial amount of

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Solomon was no doubt familiar with this practice as his own father engaged in it with his contemporaries. Cf 2 Sam 3:31 . Ecclesiastes 4 a 4:10 Lit they fall . b 4:13 God’s word calls on us to make our senior years a time of spiritual maturity and intellectual growth. A time to convert a lifetime of courageous morality, personal integrity, and character-building into a legacy that encourages and inspires the next generation. Ecclesiastes 6 a 6:12 The narrator is trying to prove that life is not worth living, but the Holy Spirit is using him to show that these conclusions are the tragic effect of living “under the sun”—ignoring the Lord, living apart from God the Father, oblivious to the Holy Spirit—and yet face to face with the mysteries of life and nature. Ecclesiastes 7 a 7:15 Lit prolongs . b 7:28 Or person . Ecclesiastes 8 a 8:5 Lit time and judgment . b 8:6 Lit time and judgment . Ecclesiastes 10 a 10:13 Lit the words of his mouth . Ecclesiastes 11 a 11:1 I.e. be richly rewarded. Ecclesiastes 12 a 12:5 This is an actual bush that grows in the region of the Mediterranean Sea. It is used in various condiments. In this verse some think it refers to loss of taste in old age, others to sexual desire (taking the fruit as an aphrodisiac), but which is not clear. b 12:11 This verse establishes the divine inspiration of Ecclesiastes. The Song of Solomon Song of Solomon 1 The Young Shulammite Bride and Jerusalem’s Daughters 1 T he a Song of Songs [the best of songs], which is Solomon’s. [1 Kin 4:32 ] b (The Shulammite Bride) 2 “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” [Solomon arrives, she turns to him, saying,] “For your love is better than wine. 3 “The aroma of your oils is fragrant and pleasing; Your name is perfume poured out; Therefore the maidens love you. 4 “Draw me away with you and let us run together! Let the king bring me into his chambers.” c (The Chorus) “W e will rejoice and be glad in you; We will remember and extol your love more [sweet and fragrant] than wine. Rightly do they love you.” (The Shulammite Bride) 5 “I am deeply tanned but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, [I am dark] like the tents of [the Bedouins of] Kedar, Like the [beautiful] curtains of Solomon. 6 “Do not gaze at me because I am deeply tanned, [I have worked in] the sun; it has left its mark on me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me keeper of the vineyards, But my own vineyard (my complexion) I have not kept.” 7 “Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, Where do you pasture your flock, Where do you make it lie down at noon?

• From Vox (1992)

  141 oil, this was about maybe a third of the bottle. The waste was itself exciting. It was like covering him in some am ber glaze. He hurriedly moved his legs farther apart so he wouldn't get oil spatter on his feet. By the time there were only a few last drips falling from the bottle, he was totally, I mean totally, hard. And of course with this success I had second thoughts. I almost wanted him to leave right then so that I could come in the shower by myself. I stepped out of the tub and I said, 'Sorry, I got carried away. And the problem is, I have this darn yeast situation, so I can't really do anything with that magnif icent thing, much as I'd like to.' He said, 'Ah, that's all right, I'll just go home and take care of that myself, that's no problem,' he said, 'but your tub, on the other hand, is a mess. Ask me to clean it and I will.' I said, 'Oh don't worry about that, it's just oil, it's nothing.' But he was on his own private trajectory, and he said, 'That's right, it's oil, plus I have to say the tub is not terribly clean to begin with.' I said, 'No no no, don't even think of it, really.' He picked up an old dry Rescue pad that was in a corner and he held it up and he said, 'Look, tell me to clean your tub.' He's standing there, a pantless patent lawyer, semi- erect, wearing my Danger Mouse T-shirt, holding the tiny curled-up green Rescue pad with a fierce expression. He wanted to clean my tub. I said, 'Well, great. Please do. Sure.' He asked for some Ajax, so I brought some from the kitchen, along with a folding chair so I could sit and watch. Well, this Lawrence turned out to be some

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Never eloquent,” he replied deprecatingly, “but sometimes very earnest perhaps, especially when some event of the day comes to point the Gospel story—” he talked like a man of fair education and I could see he was pleased at being drawn to the front. Then Kate brought me fresh coffee and Mrs. Gregory came in and continued her meal and the talk became interesting, thanks to Mr. Gregory who couldn’t help saying how the fire in Chicago had stimulated Christianity in his hearers and given him a great text. I mentioned casually that I had been in the fire and told of Randolph Street Bridge and the hanging and what else I saw there and on the lakefront that unforgettable Monday morning. At first Kate went in and out of the room removing dishes as if she were not concerned in the story, but when I told of the women and girls half-naked at the lakeside while the flames behind us reached the zenith in a red sheet that kept throwing flame-arrows ahead and started the ships burning on the water in front of us, she too stopped to listen. At once I caught my cue, to be liked and admired by all the rest; but indifferent, cold to her. So I rose as if her standing enthralled had interrupted me and said: “I’m sorry to keep you: I’ve talked too much, forgive me!” and betook myself to my room in spite of the protests and prayers to continue of all the rest. Kate just flushed; but said nothing. She attracted me greatly: she was infinitely desirable, very good-looking and very young (only sixteen, her mother said later) and her great hazel eyes were almost as exciting as her pretty mouth or large hips and good height. She pleased me intimately but I resolved to win her altogether and felt I had begun well: at any rate she would think about me and my coldness. I spent the evening in putting out my half dozen books, not forgetting my medical treatises, and then slept, the deep sleep of sex recuperation. The next morning I called on Smith again where he lived with the Reverend Mr. Kellogg, who was the Professor of English History in the University, Smith said. Kellogg was a man of about forty, stout and well-kept, with a faded wife of about the same age. Rose, the pretty servant, let me in: I had a smile and warm word of thanks for her: she was astonishingly pretty, the prettiest girl I had seen in Lawrence: medium height and figure with quite lovely face and an exquisite rose-leaf skin! She smiled at me; evidently my admiration pleased her.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  At this moment the model emerged with a sheet about her and probably because of my praise Alexander introduced me to Mlle. Jeanne and said I was a distinguished American writer. She nodded to me saucily, flashing white teeth at me, mounted the estrade, threw off the sheet and took up her pose—all in a moment. I was carried off my feet; the more I looked, the more perfections I discovered. For the first time I saw a figure that I could find no fault with. Needless to say I told her so in my best French with a hundred similes. Alexander also I conciliated by begging him to do no more to the sketch but sell it to me and do another. Finally he took four hundred and fifty francs for it and in an hour had made another sketch. My purchase had convinced Mlle. Jeanne that I was a young millionaire and when I asked her if I might accompany her to her home, she consented more than readily. As a matter of fact, I took her for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne and from there to dinner in a private room at the Café Anglais. During the meal I had got to like her: she lived with her mother, Alexander had told me; though by no means prudish, still less virginal, she was not a _coureuse_. I thought I might risk connection; but when I got her to take off her clothes and began to caress her sex, she drew away and said quite as a matter of course: “Why not _faire minette_?” When I asked her what she meant, she told me frankly: “We women do not get excited in a moment as you men do; why not kiss and tongue me there for a few minutes, then I shall have enjoyed myself and shall be ready....” I’m afraid I made rather a face for she remarked coolly: “Just as you like, you know. I prefer in a meal the _hors d’oeuvres_ to the _pièce de résistance_ like a good many other women: indeed I often content myself with the _hors d’oeuvres_ and don’t take any more. Surely you understand that a woman goes on getting more and more excited for an hour or two and no man is capable of bringing her to the highest pitch of enjoyment while pleasing himself.” “I’m able”, I said stubbornly, “I can go on all night if you please me, so we should skip appetizers.” “No, no!” she replied, laughing, “let us have a banquet then, but begin with lips and tongue!” The delay, the bandying to and fro of argument and above all, the idea of kissing and tonguing her sex, had brought me to coolness and reason. Was I not just as foolish as Bancroft if I yielded to the—an unknown girl.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  At this moment the model emerged with a sheet about her and probably because of my praise Alexander introduced me to Mlle. Jeanne and said I was a distinguished American writer. She nodded to me saucily, flashing white teeth at me, mounted the estrade, threw off the sheet and took up her pose—all in a moment. I was carried off my feet; the more I looked, the more perfections I discovered. For the first time I saw a figure that I could find no fault with. Needless to say I told her so in my best French with a hundred similes. Alexander also I conciliated by begging him to do no more to the sketch but sell it to me and do another. Finally he took four hundred and fifty francs for it and in an hour had made another sketch. My purchase had convinced Mlle. Jeanne that I was a young millionaire and when I asked her if I might accompany her to her home, she consented more than readily. As a matter of fact, I took her for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne and from there to dinner in a private room at the Café Anglais. During the meal I had got to like her: she lived with her mother, Alexander had told me; though by no means prudish, still less virginal, she was not a coureuse. I thought I might risk connection; but when I got her to take off her clothes and began to caress her sex, she drew away and said quite as a matter of course: “Why not faire minette?” When I asked her what she meant, she told me frankly: “We women do not get excited in a moment as you men do; why not kiss and tongue me there for a few minutes, then I shall have enjoyed myself and shall be ready....” I’m afraid I made rather a face for she remarked coolly: “Just as you like, you know. I prefer in a meal the hors d’oeuvres to the pièce de résistance like a good many other women: indeed I often content myself with the hors d’oeuvres and don’t take any more. Surely you understand that a woman goes on getting more and more excited for an hour or two and no man is capable of bringing her to the highest pitch of enjoyment while pleasing himself.” “I’m able”, I said stubbornly, “I can go on all night if you please me, so we should skip appetizers.” “No, no!” she replied, laughing, “let us have a banquet then, but begin with lips and tongue!” The delay, the bandying to and fro of argument and above all, the idea of kissing and tonguing her sex, had brought me to coolness and reason. Was I not just as foolish as Bancroft if I yielded to the—an unknown girl.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I had had the best part of her wisdom, so I stripped off a five dollar bill and gave it to her. “Thanks,” she said, “you’re a dear and if you want to come an’ see me any time, just come an’ I’ll try to give you a good time.”—Away I went. I had had my first talk with a prostitute and in her room! The idea that a girl could want a baby was altogether new to me: her temptations very different from a boy’s, very! For the greater part of my first year in Chicago I had no taste of love: I was often tempted by this chambermaid or that; but I knew I should lose prestige if I yielded and I simply put it all out of my head resolvedly as I had abjured drink. But towards the beginning of the summer temptation came to me in a new guise. A Spanish family, named Vidal, stopped at the Fremont House. Señor Vidal was like a French officer, middle height, trim figure, very dark with grey moustache waving up at the ends. His wife, motherly but stout, with large dark eyes and small features; a cousin, a man of about thirty, rather tall with a small black moustache, like a tooth brush, I thought, and sharp imperious ways. At first I did not notice the girl who was talking to her Indian maid. I understood at once that the Vidals were rich and gave them the best rooms: “all communicating—except yours,” I added, turning to the young man: “it is on the other side of the corridor, but large and quiet.” A shrug and contemptuous nod was all I got for my pains from Señor Arriga. As I handed the keys to the bellboy, the girl threw back her black mantilla. “Any letters for us?” she asked quietly. For a minute I stood dumbfounded, enthralled, then “I’ll see,” I muttered and went to the rack, but only to give myself a countenance—I knew there were none. “None, I’m sorry to say,” I smiled watching the girl as she moved away. “What’s the matter with me?” I said to myself angrily. “She’s nothing wonderful, this Miss Vidal; pretty, yes, and dark with fine dark eyes, but nothing extraordinary.” But it would not do; I was shaken in a new way and would not admit it even to myself. In fact the shock was so great that my head took sides against heart and temperament at once as if alarmed. “All Spaniards are dank,” I said to myself, trying to depreciate the girl and so regain self-control; “besides her nose is beaked a little.” But there was no conviction in my criticism. As soon as I recalled the proud grace of carriage and the magic of her glance, the fever-fit shook me again: for the first time my heart had been touched.

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

  I answer that, Some say that whenever pleasure is the chief motive for the marriage act it is a mortal sin; that when it is an indirect motive it is a venial sin; and that when it spurns the pleasure altogether and is displeasing, it is wholly void of venial sin; so that it would be a mortal sin to seek pleasure in this act, a venial sin to take the pleasure when offered, but that perfection requires one to detest it. But this is impossible, since according to the Philosopher (Ethic. x, 3,4) the same judgment applies to pleasure as to action, because pleasure in a good action is good, and in an evil action, evil; wherefore, as the marriage act is not evil in itself, neither will it be always a mortal sin to seek pleasure therein. Consequently the right answer to this question is that if pleasure be sought in such a way as to exclude the honesty of marriage, so that, to wit, it is not as a wife but as a woman that a man treats his wife, and that he is ready to use her in the same way if she were not his wife, it is a mortal sin; wherefore such a man is said to be too ardent a lover of his wife, because his ardor carries him away from the goods of marriage. If, however, he seek pleasure within the bounds of marriage, so that it would not be sought in another than his wife, it is a venial sin. Reply to Objection 1: A man seeks wanton pleasure in his wife when he sees no more in her that he would in a wanton. Reply to Objection 2: Consent to the pleasure of the intercourse that is a mortal sin is itself a mortal sin; but such is not the consent to the marriage act. Reply to Objection 3: Although he does not actually refer the pleasure to God, he does not place his will’s last end therein; otherwise he would seek it anywhere indifferently. Hence it does not follow that he enjoys a creature; but he uses a creature actually for his own sake, and himself habitually, though not actually, for God’s sake. Reply to Objection 4: The reason for this statement is not that man deserves to be excommunicated for this sin, but because he renders himself unfit for spiritual things, since in that act, he becomes flesh and nothing more. OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF MARRIAGE, IN GENERAL (ONE ARTICLE)In the next place we must consider the impediments of marriage: (1) In general; (2) In particular. Whether it is fitting that impediments should be assigned to marriage?Objection 1: It would seem unfitting for impediments to be assigned to marriage. For marriage is a sacrament condivided with the others. But no impediments are assigned to the others. Neither therefore should they be assigned to marriage.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  When she returned a few weeks later, I felt as if she were new and unknown and I had to win her again; but as soon as my hand touched her sex, the strangeness disappeared and she gave herself to me with renewed zest. I teased her to tell me just what she felt and at length she consented. “Begin with the first time” I begged, “and then tell what you felt in Kansas City.” “It will be very hard”, she said, “I’d rather write it for you.” “That’ll do just as well”, I replied, and here is the story she sent me the next day. [Illustration] “I think the first time you had me,” she began “I felt more curiosity than desire: I had so often tried to picture it all to myself. When I saw your sex, I was astonished, for it looked very big to me and I wondered whether you could really get it into my sex which I knew was just big enough for my finger to go in. Still I did want to feel your sex pushing into me, and your kisses and the touch of your hand on my sex made me even more eager. When you slipped the head of your sex into mine, it hurt dreadfully; it was almost like a knife cutting into me, but the pain for some reason seemed to excite me and I pushed forward so as to get you further in me; I think that’s what broke my maidenhead. At first I was disappointed because I felt no thrill, only the pain; but when my sex became all wet and open and yours could slip in and out easily, I began to feel real pleasure. I liked the slow movement best; it excited me to feel the head of your sex just touching the lips of mine and when you pushed in slowly all the way, it gave me a gasp of breathless delight; when you drew your sex out, I wanted to hold it in me. And the longer you kept on, the more pleasure you gave me. For hours afterwards my sex was sensitive; if I rubbed it ever so gently, it would begin to itch and burn.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “We must get up and dress”, she said, “they’ll soon be back”, so I had to content myself with just lying in her arms with my sex touching hers. Soon she began to move against my sex, and to kiss me, and then she bit my lips just as my sex slipped into hers again; she left it in for a long moment and then as her lips grew hot: “it’s so big”, she said, “but you’re a dear.” The moment after she cried: “We must get up, boy! if they caught us, I’d die of shame.” When I tried to divert her attention by kissing her breasts, she pouted, “That hurts too. Please, boy, stop and don’t look”, she added as she tried to rise, covering her sex the while with her hand, and pulling a frowning face. Though I told her she was mistaken and her sex was lovely, she persisted in hiding it, and in truth her breasts and thighs excited me more, perhaps because they were in themselves more beautiful. I put my hand on her hips; she smiled, “Please, boy” and as I moved away to give her room, she got up and stood by the bed, a perfect little figure in rosy, warm outline. I was entranced, but the cursed critical faculty was awake. As she turned, I saw she was too broad for her height; her legs were too short, her hips too stout. It all chilled me a little. Should I ever find perfection? Ten minutes later she had arranged the bed and we were seated in the sitting-room but to my wonder Jessie didn’t want to talk over our experience. “What gave you most pleasure?” I asked. “All of it”, she said, “you naughty dear; but don’t let’s talk of it.” I told her I was going to work for a month, but I couldn’t talk to her: my hand was soon up her clothes again playing with her sex and caressing it, and we had to move apart hurriedly when we heard her sister at the door. I didn’t get another evening alone with Jessie for some time. I asked for it often enough, but Jessie made excuses and her sister was very cold to me. I soon found out it was by her advice that Jessie guarded herself. Jessie confessed that her sister accused her of letting me “act like a husband: she must have seen a stain on my chemise”, Jessie added, “when you made me bleed, you naughty boy; any way something gave her the idea and now you must be good.” That was the conclusion of the whole matter. If I had known as much then as I knew ten years later, neither the pain nor her sister’s warnings could have dissuaded Jessie from giving herself to me. Even at the time I felt that a little more knowledge would have made me the arbiter.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  For some moments she didn’t speak, then: “I feel as if I had passed through fever”, she said, putting her hands through her hair, lifting it in a gesture I was to know well in the days to come: “Never promise again if you don’t come: I thought I should go mad: waiting is a horrible torture! Who kept you?—some girl?” and her eyes searched mine. I excused myself; but her intensity chilled me. At the risk of alienating my girl-readers, I must confess this was the effect her passion had on me. When I kissed her, her lips were cold. But by the time we had got upstairs, she had thawed: she shut the door after us gravely and began: “See how ready I am for you!” and in a moment she had thrown back her robe and stood before me naked: she tossed the garment on a chair; it fell on the floor: she stooped to pick it up with her bottom to me: I kissed her soft bottom and caught her up by it with my hand on her sex. She turned her head over her shoulder: “I’ve washed and scented myself for you, Sir: how do you like the perfume? and how do you like this bush of hair?” and she touched her Mount with a grimace; “I was so ashamed of it as a girl: I used to shave it off: that’s what made it grow so thick, I believe: one day my mother saw it and made me stop shaving; oh, how ashamed of it I was: it’s animal, ugly:—don’t you hate it? Oh! tell the truth!” she cried, “or rather, don’t; tell me you love it.” “I love it,” I exclaimed, “because it’s yours!” “Oh you dear lover,” she smiled, “you always find the right word, the flattering salve for the sore!” “Are you ready for me?” I asked, “ripe-ready or shall I kiss you first and caress pussy?” “Whatever you do, will be right,” she said, “you know I am rotten-ripe, soft and wet for you always!” All this while I was taking off my clothes: now I too was naked. “I want you to draw up your knees,” I said: “I want to see the Holy of Holies, the shrine of my idolatry.” At once she did as I asked. Her legs and bottom were well-shaped without being statuesque; but her clitoris was much more than the average button: it stuck out fully half an inch and the inner lips of her vulva hung down a little below the outer lips. I knew I should see prettier pussies. Kate’s was better shaped, I felt sure, and the heavy, madder-brown lips put me off a little.