Desire

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Marriage among Hindus is no simple matter. The parents of the bride and the bridegroom often bring themselves to ruin over it. They waste their substance, they waste their time. Months are taken up over the preparations in making clothes and ornaments and in preparing budgets for dinners. Each tries to outdo the other in the number and variety of courses to be prepared. Women, whether they have a voice or no, sing themselves hoarse, even get ill, and disturb the peace of their neighbours. these in their turn quietly put up with all the turmoil and bustle all the dirt and filth, representing the remains of the feasts, because they know that a time will come when they also will be behaving in the same manner. It would be better, thought my elders, to have all this bother over at one and the same time. Less expense and greater eclat. For money could be freely spent if it had only to be spent once instead of thrice. My father and my uncle were both old, and we were the last children they had to marry. it is likely that they wanted to have the last best time of their lives. In view of all these considerations, a triple wedding was decided upon, and as I have said before, months were taken up in preparation for it. It was only through these preparations that we got warning of the coming event. I do not think it meant to me anything more than the prospect of good clothes to wear, drum beating, marriage processions, rich dinners and a strange girl to play with. The carnal desire came later. I propose to draw the curtain over my shame, except for a few details worth recording. To these I shall come later. But even they have little to do with the central idea I have kept before me in writing this story. So my brother and I were both taken to Porbandar from Rajkot. There are some amusing details of the preliminaries to the final drama e.g. smearing our bodies all over with turmeric paste but I must omit them.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  whether I had simply to instruct the counsel or to appear in court. But I was tempted. My brother introduced me to the late Sheth Abdul Karim Jhaveri a partner of Dada Abdulla & Co; the firm in question. ‘It won’t be a difficult job’ the Sheth assured me. ‘We have big Europeans as our friends, whose acquaintance you will make. You can be useful to us our shop. Much of our correspondence is in English and you can help us with that too. You will, of course, be our guest and hence will have no expense whatever.’ ‘How long do you require my services?’ I asked. ‘And what will be the payment?’ ‘Not more than a year. We will pay you a first class return fare and a sum of £ 105, all found.’ This was hardly going there as a barrister. It was going as a servant of the firm. But I wanted somehow to leave India. There was also the tempting opportunity of seeing a new country, and of having new experience. Also I could send £105 to my brother and help in the expenses of the household. I closed with the offer without any higgling, and got ready to go to South Africa. 33.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Blue veins pulsed beneath the brown skin. “Do you know what I’m going to do with it? Can you guess?” Her hand reached for the smaller of my orifices, began to titillate it. Her finger sneaked into my ass, nudging it open. I held my breath—as if that would do me any good. “Relax, or you’ll just make it harder on yourself.” She held the candle against the ring of muscle, twisted it, and pushed it in. She bent her raven head and took my clitoris between her lips while she tormented my anus with the candle. I no longer thought about the future—coming, hurting, servicing her sweet, furry slit. I did not exist, except as a response to her touch. There was nothing else, no other reality, and no whim of my own will moved me. She must have left me long enough to take off her pants, because now she was kneeling over my face, encouraging me to suck her off, but snatching her clit out of my mouth when she got too close to coming. She retreated and busied herself with my restraints. My wrists and then my ankles were released. “I’m not through with you yet,” she panted, removing the candle from my ass. “Get up on your hands and knees. Put your ass in the air.” This position was more humiliating than any bondage could be. I had no knotted cords to excuse me. I knelt there, offering myself because I could not live without this, the pain I solicited from her hands. This was more than consent. It was desperation. “Yes,” she hissed. I felt the doubled-up belt caress my buttocks and the inside of my thighs. I waited, crying inside for her to begin. “Beat me,” I finally begged. She did not need a second invitation. The first light blow slapped my buttocks, stinging. Second. Third. I counted, my teeth clenched, my whole body shuddering in response to the belt. Now it did not sting. Each blow was a solid hit, embedding the belt in my ass. Gradually, I became aware that we were breathing in time with each other. She was moaning and gasping as loudly as I, and the blows were increasing in strength. I held myself there for her for as long as I could, taking the weight of her arm on my quivering cheeks, but she finally beat me down onto the bed. I could not have endured that in silence, and she did not ask me to. I grabbed the mattress with my outstretched hands as she marked my shoulders and buttocks and the backs of my legs. There were a few seconds when we hung in perfect balance—she was beating me with every ounce of her strength, and I was at the outermost limits of my tolerance, almost out of my mind. The blows ceased. She took me by the shoulders and threw me onto my back.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Let the pain build up,” Joyous Day whispered to her. “Let the pain overtake you an’ overwhelm you. Don’t fight with her, because I want your pain.” She grasped Roxanne’s left nipple and began to knead and twist it. “Give me your pain. Let it build until you cannot stand it without screamin’, then give it back to me. Give it to me out of your open mouth. Sing to me. I will transform it into pleasure and feed it back to you. We will share in your pain, like a bottle of wine, and the more pain you take for me, the closer You and I will become. We will become. One.” The steel teeth closed on Roxanne’s nipple, and she sobbed in agony. “Yeah, I know,” Joy soothed her. “Look at me. You make hurtin’ look so pretty. I want your pain. Accept it for me, take it for me, and I will take you someplace you never ever been before. Trust me, Roxie, trust me.” Joy’s fingers worked on her other nipple, drew it into a hard wrinkled erection. Roxanne tried to move, to express her pleasure and pain by writhing on the cross, but the ropes silenced her dance. Joy allowed the other clamp to close slowly, hissing her satisfaction as it gripped Roxanne’s flesh. She carefully lowered the heavy chain until it swung below Roxanne’s breasts. The pain was turning into a dull ache, the ache into a throb, and the throb in her nipples was timed to the throb in her cunt, so that it all became one pulse of … pleasure? She tried to explain this to Joy, who nodded and lowered her hands to the clips. She began to play the clothespins like a keyboard. Most of the flesh caught in them had gone numb by now, and at the return of feeling, Roxanne moaned. “Open your eyes, girl,” Joy insisted. “You got to do this wit’ your eyes wide open. Look at me.” African eyes bored into hers. “Bright bird, sing for me,” Joy said, plucking at the wooden birds that bit her breasts. “Let me make you come while I set your breasts on fire. Hurt, baby? Yeah, I know it hurts. Hurts so good. Ride it out and feed the pain to me wit’ your mouth wide open. Open it like your thighs. That’s the way. Oh, honey, you’d be shakin’ your sweet ass if you weren’t tied down so good. Uh-huh. More? More? More, baby, always more for you where that come from. Oh, yes! Yes!” Roxanne bit her lips. The orgasm was a shudder that ran over her skin. Her breasts trembled and the blush of her arousal spread across them, red as shame. Only here there was no shame, only a playful facsimile that was a spice to heighten her excitement. Joy let her rest for a few minutes, then began to work on her again.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Her own experience with straight sex had been as unsatisfying as Mike and Joe’s. But this act of penetration was firmly situated within a context of dominance and submission—the core of her eroticism. She had been brought to a point where there was nothing she craved more. There could be no self-deception, no lies about not really wanting it. And these men were incredibly good at what they did. They liked fucking and being fucked, they knew how to do it, and they wanted her to like it. The element of mutual homosexuality made it seem more perverse, yet safe. Joe churned inside her, speeding his rhythm. She tried to spread her legs wider, to open her hole a little more, but he kept them clamped down, apparently preferring to fuck her tight, to feel the maximum resistance to his bulk. “Do you want it?” he panted. “Do you want me to come?” “Yes!” she snarled, and worked with him to make it happen. He pushed especially deep inside her, jabbed her sharp and fast, his hands dug painfully into her ass cheeks, his thigh muscles went rigid. She could swear she actually felt the bulb of his dickhead swell, and knew by his convulsive hip movements that he had come. “Very nice,” Don said sarcastically. Oh, God. He had seen everything. She flushed and tried to hide her face against Mike’s thigh. He shook her off, refusing to help. Joe had disappeared, probably gone off to take a leak, and Don was probing between her legs. “Did you come?” he asked her, leather-clad fingers moving where Joe had been. “I don’t think I care about coming any more,” she said, evasively but quite truthfully. “It all feels so good I don’t want to come. I’m just afraid it will stop.” “Stop?” His head jerked erect. “We’re just getting started. Number two!” He snapped his fingers, and Mike released her hands. “Sir,” Mike said, “can I tie this bitch up and put some clamps on her tits?” Don thought about it. “I don’t see why not. It’ll make it more fun to watch. But if you don’t throw a really good fuck into her after that, I’m going to be real disappointed in you.” Mike froze at his master’s voice. “No, you won’t be disappointed, sir,” he said. “I really want to fuck this cunt until she screams. Something about her just brings it out in me. But I need to have her hurt while I’m doing it. And I need to have her tied up so she can’t get away. You want her to come, don’t you? Well, I suspect that’ll make her come real good.” “Oh? Yeah, you’re probably right. She’s just a slut, but she’s a masochistic slut. Fix her the way you want her.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There was then, by chance, in the harbour of the city a vessel laden with merchandise and bound for Chiarenza[116] in Roumelia; whereof two young Genoese were masters, who had already hoisted sail to depart as soon as the wind should be fair. Marato, having agreed with them, took order how he should on the ensuing night be received aboard their ship with the lady; and this done, as soon as it was dark, having inwardly determined what he should do, he secretly betook himself, with certain of his trustiest friends, whom he had enlisted for the purpose, to the house of Pericone, who nowise mistrusted him. There he hid himself, according to the ordinance appointed between them, and after a part of the night had passed, he admitted his companions and repaired with them to the chamber where Pericone lay with the lady. Having opened the door, they slew Pericone, as he slept, and took the lady, who was now awake and in tears, threatening her with death, if she made any outcry; after which they made off, unobserved, with great part of Pericone's most precious things and betook themselves in haste to the sea-shore, where Marato and the lady embarked without delay on board the ship, whilst his companions returned whence they came. [Footnote 116: The modern Klarentza in the north-west of the Morea, which latter province formed part of Roumelia under the Turkish domination.] The sailors, having a fair wind and a fresh, made sail and set out on their voyage, whilst the princess sore and bitterly bewailed both her former and that her second misadventure; but Marato, with that Saint Waxeth-in-hand, which God hath given us [men,] proceeded to comfort her after such a fashion that she soon grew familiar with him and forgetting Pericone, began to feel at her ease, when fortune, as if not content with the past tribulations wherewith it had visited her, prepared her a new affliction; for that, she being, as we have already more than once said, exceeding fair of favour and of very engaging manners, the two young men, the masters of the ship, became so passionately enamoured of her that, forgetting all else, they studied only to serve and pleasure her, being still on their guard lest Marato should get wind of the cause. Each becoming aware of the other's passion, they privily took counsel together thereof, and agreed to join in getting the lady for themselves and enjoy her in common, as if love should suffer this, as do merchandise and gain.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She continued her pedantic, distracting speech. “My skin is very pale, almost transparent. It looks fragile, but I heal very quickly. My veins are close to the surface, easy to get to. See how thick and blue they are? I never have any trouble giving blood. The needle just pops right in, and out it spurts. Easy as sin.” She was picking at her wrist with the point of the blade, then caressing the inside of her elbow. “All it would take is a little more pressure, and we’d have a fountain here. A scarlet fountain, pouring onto the dirty ground, completely wasted, unless … unless someone had a use for it. Unless someone caught it in their mouth before it hit the ground. Caught it and drank it, took life from it, rolled it around their tongue and palate and described the vintage to me, swallowed and swallowed as if they would never get enough. Look, my pulse is beating right here.” The arm was held out steady, not shaking. A glinting edge pressed against old scars along the vein, hard enough to make an indentation but not to break the skin. The sight made Kerry’s leather-clad hips jerk, just once, but Iduna saw it and was immediately excited. How interesting, to see a reflexive response there, in the crotch, instead of just the jaws and hands. What possibilities it opened up … but the words the leatherwoman spoke next shattered her erotic fantasies. “You will bleed to death if you cut yourself there, that way,” said she. It might have been a report on the temperature and time of day. “Don’t you want it? Need it? Wouldn’t you like to smell it, falling through the air? The wind is behind me. It would bring the scent to you at once, fresh and abundant.” The other shook her head. “No.” “No?” “No. Why are you surprised? Even if this mad story you’ve concocted is true, you yourself said I’ve already gone without it for months.” Iduna made the mistake of arguing. “Then the need must be intense right now. You must be hungry. I don’t think you’ll die without blood, but it must make you feel a little sick to be deprived. A little less powerful than usual, a little less energetic. Distracted. Frustrated. Off.”

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The heel of his palm rested against her clit, and his long fingers dabbled in her juices, then pierced her hole and filled it. “I’m sorry to see you’re all dry and reluctant,” he said, biting her ear. “Joe, Mike!” He indicated her boots. The two came over and lifted her feet one at a time, removed her boots and socks, then tugged her jeans down over her hips. All her clothes were piled with the jacket on the dusty armchair. He was so tall, he had to pull her off her feet to get his hand around her cunt. His jacket creaked, smelling deliciously of leather and armpits. He began to chew her neck and shoulder, his fingers moving just enough to make her cunt feel good. His hard cock pressed against her buttocks, smearing thick liquid into her crack. Did his cock just leak continually, she wondered, constantly secreting this stream of sex juice? “You lied to me before,” he said, flicking one of her nipples. “Remember? You told me you didn’t like it. But you do. I’m your worst fear and your best fantasy. You’re just pissed because I haven’t fucked you yet.” He went to work on the other side of her throat. His mustache burned, his mouth sucked and licked her, his teeth left puncture marks and bite marks from her ear down her neck all the way across her shoulder. Her hands were pressed against his pubic hair, and she had just enough mobility in the hospital restraints to be able to fondle his balls. When he felt her touch, he bit her harder and dug his fingers deeper into her vagina. Finally, he lifted his head. “Joe, clean her out, okay?” Joe approached her, swinging a guard-dog training collar in one hand. Each of its chain links were attached to prongs which would lay flat when the dog’s leash had slack in it. If the dog lunged, the leash would pull the prongs up and make them dig into the dog’s neck. Naked, collared, and with arms bound behind her, she was easy to control. He led her into the bathroom. A douche hose dangled from the shower head, and this familiar sight was so incongruous, she erupted into helpless laughter. Joe grinned, then turned his back on her to hide his expression, twirled the faucets, and tested the temperature of the water flowing through the hose. Mike joined them, sat on the toilet, bent her over his knee and greased her ass, then held her there, keeping the tips of his fingers just barely inside it. She could feel the calluses on his hands. “How far up should we clean?” Joe asked, spurting hose in hand. He could have been an obscene statue in a garden fountain. She barely repressed a hysterical giggle. Don was watching them from the doorway. He had retrieved and relit his cigar. “I don’t know.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “You may not,” Berenice said ruefully, hanging her robe on a bronze hook, “but I couldn’t resist your plump little hot cross buns. Let’s relax and refresh ourselves.” She climbed into the tub beside Clarissa. There were marble benches inside the tub at the right height for them to sit down and still have their shoulders covered by the lovely hot water. While they soaked, they fed each other slices of tangerine and took tiny sips of the cold water. Clarissa recovered quickly, and was the first out of the tub. She dried herself, then held out a thick towel to receive Berenice. She dried her mistress carefully, daring to kiss her shoulders and the place between her breasts. She brushed against the older woman, hugged her tight, and whispered, “Will you take me into your bed tonight?” Berenice considered this request. She felt a certain lassitude, the cynical melancholy that overcame her when she was exhausted. Then she contemplated Clarissa’s enthusiasm, her fresh face, her hope and affection, and could not bear to disappoint her. Perhaps the maraschino cherry mouth and the dove-like hands could arouse her interest and restore her contentment. But they could not go like this, like a pair of simple-minded, medieval shepherdesses slipping hand-in-hand into the nearest patch of willows. She seized Clarissa by the hair and dragged her closer, until the tips of her toes barely touched the thick white carpet. “Oh yes,” she threatened. “I’ll take you into my bed tonight. And you won’t get any sleep at all—not a wink.” Forgetting her robe (but not the birching ointment), she hauled Clarissa out of the bathroom and pushed her toward the stairs. “Let’s see what your gratitude is worth,” she sneered. They got as far as the landing before Clarissa broke away, sank to her knees, and buried her face between Berenice’s thighs. From the bottom of the stairs, Elise (on her way to tidy up the disciplinary chamber) caught a glimpse of the beautiful pose. She smiled wistfully, shook out her feather duster, and went in solitary pursuit of her domestic duties.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  It was not a very elegant confession, but it was effective. A few vulgar sentences, interrupted by her last few sobs and soft cries of pain when he pressed his big hands into her bruised hindquarters, persuaded him to push his thumbs, side-by-side, into her ass. Lubrication followed. It was cold and thick. Jesus, it was creepy, having something in there. It gave her goosebumps and made her skin crawl, that awkward feeling of needing to shit, the fear of pain in the most tender of all places, anxiety about being dirty—and despite all that, the fierce hope that his strong cock would follow his fingers and pierce her deeply, take pleasure in her ass. “You’re nice and snug,” he murmured, smooth leather hands reaching through the bars to stroke her, hands returning to her ass to lift and separate the cheeks, massage the sides of her asshole, position his cock and push a little. She held still, letting him work on her, while her hands gripped the bars and tried to pull them apart. There was a popping sensation as the head of his dick slipped past her sphincter, then the smooth length of the shaft dilating—filling— And the bastard had one hand around her waist, fiddling with her clit! Damn him! It was distracting. She wanted to feel her ass hugging and milking him, delighting him until he came. The possibility of coming herself was annoying. He kept it up anyway, holding her firmly against the bars, then began to withdraw from her ass. There was a sensation of relief—oh thank heaven, it’s coming out—then dismay as he pushed his cock back in—oh, no, my ass is still full, it can’t close up and get comfy, I need to shit, he’s going to hurt me— It seemed to go on forever. Apparently he could fuck her as long as he wanted to without losing control or coming. Damn. She twisted, pushed back when he pushed in, tried to get her hands free to stroke him, tried to twist her head around so she could see him, kiss him—

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She was very deft, with a soft, lingering touch, a little slow. At first he had resented the infinitely soft touch of her fingers on his face. But now he liked it, with a growing voluptuousness. He let her shave him nearly every day: her face near his, her eyes so very concentrated, watching that she did it right. And gradually her fingertips knew his cheeks and lips, his jaw and chin and throat perfectly. He was well-fed and well-liking, his face and throat were handsome enough, and he was a gentleman. She was handsome too, pale, her face rather long and absolutely still, her eyes bright, but revealing nothing. Gradually, with infinite softness, almost with love, she was getting him by the throat, and he was yielding to her. She now did almost everything for him, and he felt more at home with her, less ashamed of accepting her menial offices, than with Connie. She liked handling him. She loved having his body in her charge, absolutely, to the last menial offices. She said to Connie one day: "All men are babies, when you come to the bottom of them. Why, I've handled some of the toughest customers as ever went down Tevershall pit. But let anything ail them so that you have to do for them, and they're babies, just big babies. Oh, there's not much difference in men!" At first Mrs. Bolton had thought there really was something different in a gentleman, a _real_ gentleman, like Sir Clifford. So Clifford had got a good start of her. But gradually, as she came to the bottom of him, to use her own term, she found he was like the rest, a baby grown to a man's proportions: but a baby with a queer temper and a fine manner and power in its control, and all sorts of odd knowledge that she had never dreamed of, with which he could still bully her. Connie was sometimes tempted to say to him: "For God's sake, don't sink so horribly into the hands of that woman!" But she found she didn't care for him enough to say it, in the long run. It was still their habit to spend the evening together, till ten o'clock. Then they would talk, or read together, or go over his manuscript. But the thrill had gone out of it. She was bored by his manuscripts. But she still dutifully typed them out for him. But in time Mrs. Bolton would do even that. For Connie had suggested to Mrs. Bolton that she should learn to use a typewriter. And Mrs. Bolton, always ready, had begun at once, and practised assiduously. So now Clifford would sometimes dictate a letter to her, and she would take it down rather slowly, but correctly. And he was very patient spelling for her the difficult words, or the occasional phrases in French. She was so thrilled, it was almost a pleasure to instruct her.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  wherewithal to send me? And was it proper to trust a young man like me to go abroad alone? My mother was sorely perplexed. She did not like the idea of parting with me. This is how she tried to put me off: ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘is now the eldest member of the family. He should first be consulted. If he consents we will consider the matter.’ My brother had another idea. He said to me: ‘We have a certain claim on the Porbandar State. Mr. Lely is the Administrator. He thinks highly of our family and uncle is in his good books. It is just possible that he might recommend you for some State help for your education in England.’ I liked all this and got ready to start off for Porbandar. There was no railway in those days. It was a five days’ bullock-cart journey. I have already said that I was a coward. But at that moment my cowardice vanished before the desire to go to England, which completely possessed me. I hired a bullock-cart as far as Dhoraji, and from Dhoraji I took a camel in order to get to Porbandar a day quicker. This was my first camel-ride. I arrived at last, did obeisance to my uncle, and told him everything. He thought it over and said : ‘I am not sure whether it is possible for one to stay in England without prejudice to one’s own religion. From all I have heard, I have my doubts. When I meet these big barristers, I see no difference between their life and that of Europeans. They know no scruples regarding food. Cigars are never out of their mouths. They dress as shamelessly as Englishmen. All that would not be in keeping with our family tradition. I am shortly going on a pilgrimage and have not many years to live. At the threshold of death, how dare I give you permission to go to England, to cross the seas? But I will not stand in your way.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The spoiler told his pawn all of this because he wanted the master to know that they shared a love for the original context out of which the classic whips—working tools—came, the métier they occupied before being appropriated for sexual purposes. He did not realize that the boy was also listening, hungry for any sort of clue about why he was here and what it all meant. Tops should guard their tongues around bottoms once a scene has begun. An offhand remark can burn like a brand in a receptive mind for years after it is flippantly uttered, and someone can shape his life to obtain a similar piece of praise again, or prove that a rebuke was undeserved. A top who is not similarly vulnerable will probably remain a mediocrity. An aroused bottom is an oracle. “You’ll want him standing up, then,” the master said in his gravelly bass, and he undid the cock-and-ball bondage with a single tug on a loose end. He hustled the boy to his feet and slapped his front up against the smooth wood of the pillar. This time, the necessity for bondage was not questioned. The boy had longed for something to pull against while he was on the Barkley bench, some way to express his distress that would not put an end to the scene. He was surprised when the master buckled his discarded chaps around his waist, leaving his ass naked, and zipped up the legs. Curt had not seen the interaction behind his back, when the master had held up a weightlifter’s kidney belt, and the spoiler had indicated he needed his body to be protected more completely by taking the boy’s borrowed leather from the pile of clothing folded in the corner. “I’m still getting the hang of this,” the spoiler murmured apologetically. The master inclined his head. He rarely met a top who cared to go to school, and the admission of apprenticeship charmed him. Anybody can pick up a whip and then try to chop wood with it. It’s not a very effective way to keep warm in winter, and it rarely heats anybody else up, either. The spoiler did not start by cracking the whip. He trailed it over the tense back, stepped away, grasped it by the middle, and whirled the end of it lightly across the surface, warming it. Gradually he let his hand slip closer to the handle, increasing the force of his strokes. Not until the boy’s back was well reddened did he move far enough away to use the entire length of the quirt. It looked like throwing a baseball—he seemed to be hurling something at the boy, but the whip stayed in his hand, and only a fireball of pain flew free and hit like a grenade.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I finally quit wondering whether I was having hot flashes or cold chills and just let waves of excitement flicker up and down me, praying I wouldn’t shiver in her arms. Her own smell (the salt of perspiration, the secret hollows and folds of her skin, the musk and wild onion of her sex) was mixed with tobacco and booze, and it aroused me so painfully that I wanted to bury my nose in her hair, her armpits, the folds of her labia. She started playing with the braided leather band around my throat. “You have interesting taste in jewelry,” she said casually. “What is this, a choker or something?” “It’s a collar,” I said. She was looking for a snap or a knot, but all she could find was the silver ring woven into the design. “Doesn’t it come off?” she asked, turning it. I smiled. “Well,” she shrugged, “I’m impressed.” She let me snuggle up to her, and rested her chin on the top of my head. “You’re very sensitive,” she drawled, stroking my neck. Goosebumps covered me in a flash. “Just the lightest touch … and your skin is so pale.” She pretended to take a professional interest in my health—“I hope you’re not anemic?” “No, but I bruise easily.” “Ahh.” Her nostrils quivered. My inner lips had continued to swell, unfurling themselves until they were in full bloom. I was slippery with hot vaginal oils. She continued to tease me, shifting suddenly to apply pressure when I least expected it, clinging and grinding against me when I tried to move away. I threw back my head and looked at her, letting her see the flush on my cheeks. Her eyes narrowed, and she began to coax more sensation from me, trying to see how high I could get without breaking away. My breath was coming in fits and starts. But it was she who suddenly uttered a short cry of surprise and ecstasy. I was startled— flattered. She took my chin in her cupped hand and brought me to her mouth. Teeth, clean and sharp, cut my lips. Her tongue rippled against my inner cheeks and palate. I moaned inside her mouth, safe, where no one could hear me. My vagina was a fountain, little spurts of lubrication welling up out of me. “I’m kissing you too hard,” she whispered, and released me. “I can take rougher treatment than that,” I murmured in reply, and laid my cheek on her shoulder. She twisted her hand in my hair and forced me to look at her. There was something like pity in her eyes, then that was replaced by a predatory joy. “Can you really?” she threatened. “I can play any game you can come up with.” “But I’m not playing.”

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  See, I think she figured that if she told me she liked getting fucked she might have to get her own little paws dirty and do something lez-bian with me. Nothin’ more pussy than a dyke, ain’t that so, EZ? But nobody could tell you wasn’t a boy right now, with Michael plowin’ a straight furrow up your dirt road. And as soon as she’s done, anybody who feels like it can have a piece of you because I don’t want you gettin’ any ideas that this is a real cock, as if it made a goddamn bit of difference to whether the fuck was any good or not, or who has to do the fucking, or that you are too good to spread your legs like the rest of us—or get it up for a buddy who would like to be on her back for a change.” Not everybody could even wait to take their turn. With Alex’s encouragement, the horse turned into a double gang-fuck. Only Chris hung back, until Alex slapped a handful of grease into her palm, grabbed her hand, and went into Roxanne’s cunt still holding on. By the time they were finished, the two girls were such a mess that Tyre got a spatula from under the bar and scraped the Crisco off them, knocking it off the spatula into an empty can that Kay held out for her. Anne-Marie rolled up a towel and used it the same way, then Alex scrubbed them both down with one she had unfolded. Joy found the invisible bathroom door, got the shower running, and helped the rest of the pack strip their victims down and herd them under the water. Kay kept a sharp eye on EZ, afraid of a resurgence of bad temper, but she and Roxanne just started soaping each other and washing each other’s backs. One thing led to another, and eventually Joy said, “I feel like I ought to do the decent thing and turn my back. Or say what the hell and take me some pictures.” Roxanne and EZ didn’t want to stop even when the hot water ran out. Kay had somehow scrounged up a beach towel from the trick linen to wrap EZ in. Alex and Chris were performing a similar service with smaller towels for Roxanne, who wore an idiotic smile and somehow still had Crisco in her ears. Tyre went to fetch robes for both of them. When she brought them back to the bathroom, Kay caught at her sleeve and said under her breath, “Look, I really planned to stick around for the finale, but I have to finish this now that it’s started. We’ll just slip out while everybody takes a break. I got to get this boychick off to myself and talk some sense into her while she’s listening to me.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She dug into the grease again, came up with a good-sized handful, and plastered it into the crack of Roxanne’s butt. Chris was entwined in Michael’s arms, and they were trying to suck each other’s tongues out. Joy nudged Alex when she caught her watching them. “Your woman got us all so hot mos’ anything could happen,” she said. “It’s hard to wait my turn.” “Shit,” Alex said, and took her by the waist, “why wait when you could take a turn with me?” The throat under her mouth was smooth as glass, but soft and warm, so full of life that the very pulse within it seemed to kiss her back. Joy’s hands went around her, inside her jacket, and the nails left trails of pain even through Alex’s T-shirt. “Shall I claw it off your back?” Joy teased her, putting a finger in her ear and tickling the tiny opening. “Get me started an’ not finish, what else you suppose I should do?” “Don’t believe in starting what I don’t finish,” Alex said, twisting her hipbone into the fur bikini. “Ooh-la-la, a mighty woman of principle and purpose,” Joy said, evading her. “You bettah watch that smoke and smolder, or I lose my sense of direction, mebbe follow you into the cornfields an’ we rub ourselves ’til we catch on fire, burn the whole damn thing to the ground.” On her back, Roxanne could not keep track of the pack unless they wandered right up to the sling. Nevertheless, she felt surrounded by her captors, could sense their dark and predatory presence. She imagined them moving arrogantly, examining her with amused objectivity, sure of their power and her compliance. Occasionally they commented on the scene or uttered delighted words of encouragement to Kay and EZ. But these conversations were among themselves, intended only for each other’s ears, and Roxanne could not always catch what they were saying. Kay began to pop grease up her ass with her thumb. When she was entered, there was friction and heat. When Kay pulled out, there was a sensation of relief and cold from the gobs of grease. It was humiliating, swinging in mid-air with her limbs strapped down, getting her ass stuffed with Crisco like a turkey getting stuffed with dressing. She struggled, but she could not free her hands. It was easier (and wiser) to let the sling bear her up, and subside into passivity. Kay’s face was a mask—cold, withdrawn, unimpressed, maybe even bored. All her passion was in her hands, the fingers switching places in her ass. Roxanne thought Kay would probably proceed exactly the same way with anybody she threw into a sling, and every molecule of her rebelled against being treated like a category of people to whom something was done, rather than being noticed and pursued as a unique treasure.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Then, remembering him of Sophronia and going over to the contrary, he denounced all that he had said, saying, 'The laws of love are of greater puissance than any others; they annul even the Divine laws, let alone those of friendship; how often aforetime hath father loved daughter, brother sister, stepmother stepson, things more monstrous than for one friend to love the other's wife, the which hath already a thousand times befallen! Moreover, I am young and youth is altogether subject to the laws of Love; wherefor that which pleaseth Him, needs must it please me. Things honourable pertain unto maturer folk; I can will nought save that which Love willeth. The beauty of yonder damsel deserveth to be loved of all, and if I love her, who am young, who can justly blame me therefor? I love her not because she is Gisippus's; nay, I love her for that I should love her, whosesoever she was. In this fortune sinneth that hath allotted her to Gisippus my friend, rather than to another; and if she must be loved, (as she must, and deservedly, for her beauty,) Gisippus, an he came to know it, should be better pleased that I should love her, I, than another.' Then, from that reasoning he reverted again to the contrary, making mock of himself, and wasted not only that day and the ensuing night in passing from this to that and back again, but many others, insomuch that, losing appetite and sleep therefor, he was constrained for weakness to take to his bed.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  It was that day on which people appear in summer shirts to show they have passed muster. Despite the warmth of the day, I had a cold, and my bronchial tubes were irritated. One of my friends happened to be suffering with an upset stomach, and we went together to the medical office to get written excuses that would permit us merely to watch gymnastic exercises without having to participate. On our way back, we walked along toward the gymnasium as slowly as possible. Our visit to the medical office provided us with a good reason for being tardy, and we were anxious to shorten even by a little the boring time we would have to spend watching the gymnastics. "My, it's hot, isn't it?" I said, taking off the jacket of my uniform. "You'd better not do that, not with a cold. And they'll make you do gymnastics anyway if they see you that way." I put my jacket on again hurriedly. "But it'll be all right for me, because its only my stomach." And, instead of me, it was my friend who ostentatiously took off his jacket, as though taunting me. Arriving at the gymnasium, we saw by the clothing hanging on the hooks along the wall that all the boys had taken off their sweaters, and some even their shirts. The area round the outdoor exercise bars, where there was sand and grass, seemed to be blazing brightly as we looked out at it from the dark gymnasium. My sickly constitution produced its usual reaction, and I walked toward the exercise bars giving my petulant little coughs. The insignificant gymnastics instructor scarcely glanced at the medical excuses which we handed him. Instead he turned immediately to the waiting boys and said: "All right now, let's try the horizontal bar. Omi, you show them how it's done." Friendly voices began calling Omi's name stealthily. He had simply evaporated, as he often did during gymnastics. There was no knowing what he did on these occasions, but this time again he came lounging out from behind a tree whose young green leaves were trembling with light. When I saw him my heart set up a clamor in my breast. He had taken off his shirt, leaving nothing but a dazzlingly white, sleeveless undershirt to cover his chest. His swarthy skin made the pure whiteness of the undershirt look almost too clean. It was a whiteness that could almost be smelled from a distance, like plaster of Paris. And that white plaster was carved in relief, showing the bold contours of his chest and its two nipples."The horizontal bar is it?" he asked the instructor, speaking curtly, with a tone of confidence. "Yes, that's right." Then, with that haughty indolence so often exhibited by the possessors of fine physiques, Omi stretched his hands down leisurely to the ground and smeared his palms with damp sand from just beneath the surface.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  A light came on inside it. Mirrors had been hung on the doors and back panel of the wardrobe. I was startled by the picture we made. We were a study in contrasts. I was small in front of her, very naked, my skin rosy from arousal and need. My full curves were juxtaposed with her height and angularity and the black velvet suit. She looked the part of a perfect gentleman-dyke who just happened to have a lady on a leash. We spent some time looking at ourselves. Our reflections fell behind the whips and restraints she had hung inside the cupboard. She touched each one, setting them all to swaying. There was a Victorian walking cane, a riding whip, a cat, a bullwhip, and some others I didn’t know by name. A few of them looked too menacing to be applied to human flesh. I hoped they were there for effect only. While my attention was engaged by the instruments of flagellation and various other toys in her closet, she reached for a long rope that dangled from the ceiling. She clipped the snap at the end of it through both bracelet rings, and removed her scarf from around my neck. I was sorry to see it go, it being the first thing that had bound me to her. She tickled my nose with the fringes, trying to make me laugh. I wouldn’t. “Well, if you insist on getting sentimental about it,” she shrugged, and tied it around my eyes. I could hear her moving around, humming, picking things up, opening drawers. She turned on a little electric heater—I could hear its fan. She pushed a tape into the stereo, and dark music throbbed softly in the background, gathering power. The hairs on my skin stirred slightly, announcing that she had returned and was standing quite close to me. “I’m going to touch you,” she said, and left me time to wonder how and when. I anticipated a slap, a whip, a caress, a scratch—but not what actually happened. She stroked me with oil. Warm oil. Her touch was firm and possessive, and left me feeling both valued and valuable. She rubbed the lubricant into my skin from the neck down, kneeling and placing my feet one by one on her thigh to massage them. Then I felt cold metal swing against my belly. She passed a chain through the ring of my collar, between my legs, up my back, and padlocked it to itself after running it under and over the back of the collar. “Nice,” I heard her murmur. “It gleams against your skin. You make a fetching slave.” I moved a little to feel the pull of the chain against my cunt. It was snug, providing just the right amount of friction.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She tapped ashes off her cigarette, then rolled her window down a little to carry out the smoke. “If the only information I had about lesbians was what I got out of women’s newspapers, I would never tumble to the fact that we are female queers who actually go to bed with each other. I’d think lesbianism was a political party, like the Republicans and the Democrats, and all these women only got together because of our joint oppression. I mean, I know we all have a common political cause. Nobody knows it better than me, because our group is fucking good, we work so hard, and we can’t get a recording contract with a straight company because we’re all dykes. But no feminist record company is going to sign us up either, because they think hard-core rock ’n’ roll is apolitical, and I have the reputation of a rapist. So we keep on playing for dances and parties and benefits and bars, and we always have a roomful of women dancing their asses off. But I don’t even let anybody record our act any more. I’m tired of hearing myself on a scratchy little tape cassette.” I didn’t know what to say. If I’d had a million dollars, I would have written her a check on the spot. “Bringing rock ’n’ roll to the matriarchy is a thankless task,” I finally ventured. She thought that was funny. “I dig what I do,” she said. “I’d play for myself if nobody else would listen. I’d just like to see a little more honesty, that’s all. I’d like to hear somebody admit they come out and dance to us because we turn them on, not to further the feminist revolution.” “That’ll happen the same day somebody walks up to me in a bar and says, ‘I want to fuck your brains out,’ instead of, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’” She smoked the rest of her cigarette. When she turned to me, she had a crazy little smile on her face. “I want to fuck your brains out,” she told me, and watched me shiver from head to toe. Then she laughed and went back to driving. There was a hiatus in our conversation, during which I sat peacefully, pretending the ride would never end. It was Jessie who broke the silence. “You know, you almost scared me off back there with your fancy jewelry. I wondered if we were in the same league. I mean, I don’t wear my handcuffs on my belt.” So I wasn’t the only one who was afraid of being outclassed. That was reassuring. I smiled with satisfaction, and didn’t say anything. “So where did you get them?” she demanded, a little impatiently. “It’s a long story.” “This is a long ride. Tell me.” I shook my head. “You won’t believe it.” “I won’t, huh?