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 Decameron (1353)

  When he sensed that everyone was asleep, and that the time had finally come for him to gratify his longing or perish nobly in the attempt, he kindled a small flame with the aid of a flint and steel that he had brought along for the purpose, lit his torch, and, wrapping himself carefully up in the folds of the cloak, walked over to the door of the bedchamber and knocked twice with his stick. The door was opened by a chambermaid, still half asleep, who took the light and put it aside, whereupon without uttering a sound he stepped inside the curtain, divested himself of his cloak, and clambered into the bed where the Queen was sleeping. Knowing that the King, whenever he was angry about anything, was in the habit of refusing all discourse, he drew the Queen lustfully into his arms with a show of gruff impatience, and without a single word passing between them, he repeatedly made her carnal acquaintance. He was most reluctant to depart, but nevertheless he eventually arose, fearing lest by over-staying his welcome the delight he had experienced should be turned into sorrow, and having donned his cloak and retrieved his torch, he stole wordlessly away and returned as swiftly as possible to his own bed. He could hardly have reached his destination when, to the Queen’s utter amazement, the King himself turned up in her room, climbed into bed, and offered her a cheerful greeting. ‘Heavens!’ she said, emboldened to speak by his affable manner. ‘Whatever has come over you tonight, my lord? You no sooner leave me, after enjoying me more passionately than usual, than you come back and start all over again! Do take care of your health!’ On hearing these words, the King immediately came to the conclusion that the Queen had been taken in by an outward resemblance to his own physique and manner. But he was a wise man, and since neither the Queen nor anybody else appeared to have noticed the deception, he had no hesitation in deciding to keep his own counsel. Many a stupid man would have reacted differently, and exclaimed: ‘It was not I. Who was the man who was here? What happened? Who was it who came?’ But this would only have led to complications, upsetting the lady when she was blameless and sowing the seeds of a desire, on her part, to repeat the experience. And besides, by holding his tongue his honour remained unimpaired, whereas if he were to talk he would make himself look ridiculous. And so, showing little sign of his turbulent inner feelings either in his speech or in his facial expression, the King answered her as follows: ‘Do you think, my dear, that I am incapable of returning to you a second time after being here once already?’ ‘Oh no, my lord,’ the lady replied.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Masetto heard the whole of this conversation, and since he was quite willing to obey, the only thing he was waiting for now was for one of them to come and fetch him. The two nuns had a good look round, and having made certain that they could not be observed, the one who had done all the talking went over to Masetto and woke him up, whereupon he sprang instantly to his feet. She then took him by the hand, making alluring gestures to which he responded with big broad, imbecilic grins, and led him into the hut, where Masetto needed very little coaxing to do her bidding. Having got what she wanted, she loyally made way for her companion, and Masetto, continuing to act the simpleton, did as he was asked. Before the time came for them to leave, they had each made repeated trials of the dumb fellow’s riding ability, and later on, when they were busily swapping tales about it all, they agreed that it was every bit as pleasant an experience as they had been led to believe, indeed more so. And from then on, whenever the opportunity arose, they whiled away many a pleasant hour in the dumb fellow’s arms. One day, however, a companion of theirs happened to look out from the window of her cell, saw the goings-on, and drew the attention of two others to what was afoot. Having talked the matter over between themselves, they at first decided to report the pair to the Abbess. But then they changed their minds, and by common agreement with the other two, they took up shares in Masetto’s holding. And because of various indiscretions, these five were subsequently joined by the remaining three, one after the other. Finally, the Abbess, who was still unaware of all this, was taking a stroll one very hot day in the garden, all by herself, when she came across Masetto stretched out fast asleep in the shade of an almond-tree. Too much riding by night had left him with very little strength for the day’s labours, and so there he lay, with his clothes ruffled up in front by the wind, leaving him all exposed. Finding herself alone, the lady stood with her eyes riveted to this spectacle, and she was seized by the same craving to which her young charges had already succumbed. So, having roused Masetto, she led him away to her room, where she kept him for several days, thus provoking bitter complaints from the nuns over the fact that the handyman had suspended work in the garden. Before sending him back to his own quarters, she repeatedly savoured the one pleasure for which she had always reserved her most fierce disapproval, and from then on she demanded regular supplementary allocations, amounting to considerably more than her fair share.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But what’s done is done, and now we must look to the remedy.’ Since he had a shrewd head on his shoulders, Canigiano quickly saw what was to be done, and explained his plan to Salabaetto, who, thinking it an excellent idea, set about putting it into effect. He still had a little money of his own, and supplementing this with a loan from Canigiano, he ordered a number of bales of merchandise to be packed and tightly corded up, and having purchased and filled about a score of oil-casks, he loaded the entire consignment aboard a ship and returned to Palermo. There he presented the invoice for the bales to the officers of the dogana , to whom he also declared the value of the casks, and having made sure that they had registered everything under his own name, he placed the goods in store, saying that he wished to leave them there until the arrival of a further consignment of merchandise he was expecting. On learning of his return and hearing that the goods he had brought were worth two thousand gold florins at the very least, without counting the goods still to come, which were valued at more than three thousand, Madonna Jancofiore, thinking she had set her sights too low, decided to repay him the five hundred florins so that she could get her claws on the greater portion of the five thousand, and sent word that she would like to see him. When Salabaetto called upon her, she pretended to know nothing of the merchandise he had brought and gave him the warmest of welcomes, saying: ‘Listen, my love; in case you were angry with me for not paying you back that money of yours punctually–’ But Salabaetto, having profited from his earlier mistakes, laughed and said: ‘To tell the truth, my lady, I was very little displeased, for I would pluck the very heart from my body and give it to you, if I thought it would make you happy. But I should like you to judge for yourself how angry I am with you. So great and so particular is the love I bear you, that I have sold the greater part of my possessions, and now I have brought with me to Palermo a consignment of goods worth over two thousand florins. Moreover, I am expecting a further consignment from the West worth more than three thousand, and I intend to start a business in Palermo and settle here for good, for I consider myself more fortunate in loving you than any other lover in the world.’ ‘I do assure you, Salabaetto,’ said the lady, ‘that any success of yours gives me enormous pleasure, since I love you more dearly than my very life; and I am delighted that you have returned here with the intention of staying, for I hope we shall still have many a good time together.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now, among the many women in his parish who had taken his fancy, there was one in particular for whom he had a very soft spot indeed. Her name was Monna Belcolore,3 she was married to a farmworker called Bentivegna del Mazzo,4 and without a doubt she was a vigorous and seductive-looking wench, buxom and brown as a berry, who seemed better versed in the grinder’s art than any other girl in the village. When, moreover, she had occasion to play the tambourine, and sing ‘A little of what you fancy does you good’, and dance a reel or a jig, with a dainty little kerchief in her hand, she could knock spots off every single one of her neighbours. Master Priest was so enthralled by all these talents of hers that he was driven to distraction, and spent his whole time loitering about the village in the hope of seeing her. Whenever he caught sight of her in church on a Sunday morning, he would intone a Kyrie and a Sanctus, trying very hard to sound like a master cantor when in fact he was braying like an ass, whereas if she was nowhere to be seen he would hardly open his lips. But on the whole he managed to disguise his feelings, so that neither Bentivegna del Mazzo nor any of his neighbours noticed anything unusual in his behaviour. With the object of getting to know Monna Belcolore better, every now and then he gave her presents, sometimes sending her a few cloves of fresh garlic, of which he grew the finest specimens thereabouts in his own garden, and sometimes a basket of beans, or a bunch of chives or shallots. If he met her in the street, he would look at her with a forlorn expression on his face, and whisper fond reproaches in her ear, but being a stubborn little thing, she pretended not to notice and passed him by with her nose in the air, so that Master Priest was getting precisely nowhere. One day, however, while the priest was strolling aimlessly about the village, a little after noon, he happened to meet Bentivegna del Mazzo, who was driving a heavily laden ass before him. The priest hailed him and asked him where he was going, and Bentivegna replied: ‘Faith, Father, to tell the honest truth I have some business to attend to in town, and I’m taking these things to the lawyer, Ser Bonaccorri da Ginestreto, so that he’ll help me to answer this ‘ere summings I’ve had from the tawny general to appear before the judge at the sizes.’ The priest was delighted. ‘You do well, my son,’ he said, ‘Go now, with my blessing, and come back soon. And if you should happen to meet Lapuccio or Naldino, don’t forget to ask them to bring me those leather thongs5 for my flails.’

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  It was subsumed for native women under our tribal struggle, though we certainly had struggles particular to women. I felt the country’s heart breaking. It was all breaking inside me. After one semester as a premed major I immersed myself in art studio classes and dance. I did not have the math and science background to do well in the chemistry and biology classes that were required for premed. I changed my major to studio art. “I’m not interested in marriage or finding yet another man to break my heart,” I remember telling a friend as we stood in the heat in front of the student union. The tech people were making a racket while they set up the microphones and tables for a National Indian Youth Council and Kiva Club press conference. I had just finalized the divorce with my son’s father. A fine-looking contingent from NIYC made its way to the makeshift stage to join our leaders for a press conference. Its members were modern-age warriors in sunglasses and with long black hair. There is my future, I remarked to myself as I watched a Pueblo man whose hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. I watched his sensitive hands as he balanced his coffee and unclasped his shoulder bag full of papers. He felt familiar, though I didn’t know him. I had heard him holding forth at meetings and had seen him in passing on campus. As we stood in the hot sun listening to the prepared statements, I felt the immense preciousness of each breath. We all mattered — even our small core fighting for justice despite all odds. That day would become one of those memories that surface in my mind at major transitional points in my life. I feel the sun on my shoulders, hear the scratch of the cheap sound system, and become emotional. I recall a Navajo girl in diapers learning to walk, her arms stretched out to her father. I remember picking up my son at the day care across campus, his bright yellow lunchbox shaped like a school bus swinging as he darted along beside me. That night there was an impromptu party after the strategy meeting. I watched from the doorway of the kitchen of the student apartment we gathered in, as the eloquent Pueblo man I’d eyed at the press conference easily rolled a cigarette with his hands, pulling me over to him with his eyes. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my direction. The lazy lasso hung in the air between us. I passed him a beer and took one for myself. “Who are you, skinny girl?” he asked. “Come over here.” I pretended to ignore him. He was too sure of himself. “You must be one of those Oklahoma Indians,” he said. I could tell he was used to getting what he wanted when it came to women.

• From Trash (1988)

  Twenty years later the doctor sat me down to tell me the secrets of my body. He had, oddly, that identical gesture, one finger on the ear and the others curled to the cheek as if he were thinking all the time. “Milk,” he announced, “that’s the problem, a mild allergy. Nothing to worry about. You’ll take calcium and vitamin D supplements and stay away from milk products. No cream, no butterfat, stay away from cheese.” I started to grin, but he didn’t notice. The finger on his ear was pointing to the brain. He had no sense of irony, and I didn’t tell him why I laughed so much. I should have known. Milk or cornbread or black-eyed peas, there had to be a secret, something we would never understand until it was too late. My brain is fat and strong, ripe with years of vitamin D, but my belly is tender and hurts me in the night. I grinned into his confusion and chewed the pink-and- gray pills he gave me to help me recover from the damage milk had done me. What would I have to do, I wondered, to be able to eat pan gravy again? When my stomach began to turn on me the last time, I made desperate attempts to compromise—wheat germ, brown rice, fresh vegetables and tamari. Whole wheat became a symbol for purity of intent, but hard brown bread does not pass easily. It sat in my stomach and clung to the honey deposits that seemed to be collecting between my tongue and breastbone. Lee told me I could be healthy if I drank a glass of hot water and lemon juice every morning. She chewed sunflower seeds and sesame-seed candy made with molasses. I drank the hot water, but then I went up on the roof of the apartment building to read Carson Mc-Cullers, to eat Snickers bars and drink Dr Pepper, imagining myself back in Uncle Lucius’s Pontiac inhaling Moon Pies and RC cola. “Swallow it,” Jay said. Her fingers were in my mouth, thick with the juice from between her legs. She was leaning forward, her full weight pressing me down. I swallowed, sucked between each knuckle, and swallowed again. Her other hand worked between us, pinching me but forcing the thick cream out of my cunt. She brought it up and pushed it into my mouth, took the hand I’d cleaned and smeared it again with her own musky gravy. “Swallow it,” she kept saying. “Swallow it all, suck my fingers, lick my palm.” Her hips ground into me. She smeared it on my face until I closed my eyes under the sticky, strong-smelling mixture of her juice and mine. With my eyes closed, I licked and sucked until I was drunk on it, gasping until my lungs hurt with my hands digging into the muscles of her back. I was moaning and whining, shaking like a newborn puppy trying to get to its mama’s tit.

• From Trash (1988)

  There was three-bean salad from cans packed with vinaigrette, pickle loaf on thin sliced white bread, American and Swiss cheese in slices, and antipasto from a jar sent directly from an uncle still living in New York City. “Deli food,” her mama kept saying, “is the best food in the world.” I nodded, chewing white bread and a slice of American cheese, the peanuts in my belly weighing me down like a mess of little stones. Mona picked at the pickle loaf and pushed her ankle up into my lap where her mother couldn’t see. I choked on the white bread and broke out in a sweat. Lee wore her hair pushed up like the whorls on scallop shells. She toasted mushrooms instead of marshmallows, and tried to persuade me of the value of cabbage and eggplant, but she cooked with no fat; everything tasted of safflower oil. I loved Lee but hated the cabbage—it seemed an anemic cousin of real greens—and I only got into the eggplant after Lee brought home a basketful insisting I help her to cook it up for freezing. “You got to get it to sweat out the poisons.” She sliced the big purple fruits as she talked. “Salt it up so the bitter stuff will come off.” She layered the salted slices between paper towels, changing the towels on the ones she’d cut up earlier. Some of her hair came loose and hung down past one ear. She looked like a mother in a Mary Cassatt painting, standing in her sunlit kitchen, sprinkling raw sea salt with one hand and pushing her hair back with the other. I picked up an unsalted wedge of eggplant and sniffed it, rubbing the spongy mass between my thumbs. “Makes me think of what breadfruit must be like.” I squeezed it down, and the flesh slowly shaped up again. “Smells like bread and feels like it’s been baked. But after you salt it down, it’s more like fried okra, all soft and sharp-smelling.” “Well, you like okra, don’t you?” Lee wiped her grill with peanut oil and started dusting the drained eggplant slices with flour. Sweat shone on her neck under the scarf that tied up her hair in back. “Oh yeah. You put enough cornmeal on it and fry it in bacon fat and I’ll probably like most anything.” I took the wedge of eggplant and rubbed it on the back of her neck. “What are you doing?” “Salting the eggplant.” I followed the eggplant with my tongue, pulled up her T-shirt, and slowly ran the tough purple rind up to her small bare breasts. Lee started giggling, wiggling her ass, but not taking her hands out of the flour to stop me. I pulled down her shorts, picked up another dry slice and planted it against her navel, pressed with my fingers and slipped it down toward her pubic mound.

• From Trash (1988)

  Jay does karate, does it religiously, going to class four days a week and working out at the gym every other day. Her muscles are hard and long. She is so tall people are always making jokes about “the weather up there.” I call her Shorty or Tall to tease her, and sugar hips when I want to make her mad. Her hips are wide and full, though her legs are long and stringy. “Lucky I got big feet,” she jokes sometimes, “or I’d fall over every time I stopped to stand still.” Jay is always hungry, always. She keeps a bag of nuts in her backpack, dried fruit sealed in cellophane in a bowl on her dresser, snack packs of crackers and cheese in her locker at the gym. When we go out to the women’s bar, she drinks one beer in three hours but eats half a dozen packages of smoked almonds. Her last girlfriend was Italian and she used to serve Jay big batches of pasta with homemade sausage marinara. “I need carbohydrates,” Jay insists, eating slices of potato bread smeared with sweet butter. I cook grits for her, with melted butter and cheese, fry slabs of cured ham I get from a butcher who swears it has no nitrates. She won’t eat eggs, won’t eat shrimp or oysters, but she loves catfish pan-fried in a batter of cornmeal and finely chopped onions. Coffee makes her irritable. Chocolate makes her horny. When my period is coming and I get that flushed heat feeling in my insides, I bake her Toll House cookies, serve them with a cup of coffee and a blush. She looks at me over the rim of the cup, sips slowly, and eats her cookies with one hand hooked in her jeans by her thumb. A muscle jumps in her cheek, and her eyes are full of tiny lights. “You hungry, honey?” she purrs. She stretches like a big cat, puts her bare foot up, and uses her toes to lift my blouse. “You want something sweet?” Her toes are cold. I shiver and keep my gaze on her eyes. She leans forward and cups her hands around my face. “What you hungry for, girl, huh? You tell me. You tell mama exactly what you want.”

• From Trash (1988)

  When my stomach began to turn on me the last time, I made desperate attempts to compromise—wheat germ, brown rice, fresh vegetables and tamari. Whole wheat became a symbol for purity of intent, but hard brown bread does not pass easily. It sat in my stomach and clung to the honey deposits that seemed to be collecting between my tongue and breastbone. Lee told me I could be healthy if I drank a glass of hot water and lemon juice every morning. She chewed sunflower seeds and sesame-seed candy made with molasses. I drank the hot water, but then I went up on the roof of the apartment building to read Carson Mc-Cullers, to eat Snickers bars and drink Dr Pepper, imagining myself back in Uncle Lucius’s Pontiac inhaling Moon Pies and RC cola. “Swallow it,” Jay said. Her fingers were in my mouth, thick with the juice from between her legs. She was leaning forward, her full weight pressing me down. I swallowed, sucked between each knuckle, and swallowed again. Her other hand worked between us, pinching me but forcing the thick cream out of my cunt. She brought it up and pushed it into my mouth, took the hand I’d cleaned and smeared it again with her own musky gravy. “Swallow it,” she kept saying. “Swallow it all, suck my fingers, lick my palm.” Her hips ground into me. She smeared it on my face until I closed my eyes under the sticky, strong-smelling mixture of her juice and mine. With my eyes closed, I licked and sucked until I was drunk on it, gasping until my lungs hurt with my hands digging into the muscles of her back. I was moaning and whining, shaking like a newborn puppy trying to get to its mama’s tit. Jay lifted a little off me. I opened stinging eyes to see her face, her intent and startling expression. I held my breath, waiting. I felt it before I understood it, and when I did understand I went on lying still under her, barely breathing. It burned me, ran all over my belly and legs. She put both hands down, brought them up, poured bitter yellow piss into my eyes, my ears, my shuddering mouth. “Swallow it,” she said again, but I held it in my mouth, pushed up against her and clawed her back with my nails. She whistled between her teeth. My hips jerked and rocked against her, making a wet sucking sound. I pushed my face to hers, my lips to hers, and forced my tongue into her mouth. I gripped her hard and rolled her over, my tongue sliding across her teeth, the taste of all her juices between us. I bit her lips and shoved her legs apart with my knee.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  with a desire to see her, and under the pretext of paying the Prince one of his customary visits, he came with a splendid and noble retinue to Corinth, where he was received with honour amid great rejoicing. A few days later, the two men fell to conversing about this woman’s beauty, and the Duke asked whether she was so marvellous an object as people claimed. ‘Far more so,’ replied the Prince. ‘But instead of accepting my word for it, I would rather that you judged with your own eyes.’ Thereupon the Prince invited the Duke to follow him, and they made their way to the lady’s apartments. Having been warned of their approach, she received them with great civility, her face radiant with happiness. She seated herself between the two men, but the pleasure of conversing with her was denied them because she understood little or nothing of their language. And so each man stared in fascination upon her, in particular the Duke, who could scarcely believe that she was a creature of this earth. Little realizing, as he gazed at her, that he was imbibing the poison of love through the medium of his eyes, and fondly believing that he could satisfy his pleasure merely by looking at her, he was completely bowled over by her beauty and fell violently in love with her. When he and the Prince had taken their leave of her, and he had an opportunity to indulge in a little quiet reflection, he came to the conclusion that the Prince must be the happiest man on earth, in possessing so beautiful a plaything. Many and varied were the thoughts that passed through his mind until eventually, his blazing passion gaining the upper hand over his sense of honour, he decided that whatever the consequences, he would remove this pleasure-giving object from the Prince and do all in his power to make it serve his own happiness. Being determined to move swiftly, he thrust aside all regard for reason and fair play, and concentrated solely on cunning. And one day, in the furtherance of his evil designs, he made arrangements with one of the Prince’s most trusted servants, Ciuriaci by name, to have all his horses and luggage placed secretly in readiness for a sudden departure. During the night, he and a companion, both fully armed, were silently admitted by the aforesaid Ciuriaci into the Prince’s bedroom. It was a very hot night, and although the woman was asleep, the Prince was standing completely naked at a window overlooking the sea, taking advantage of a breeze that was blowing from that quarter. The Duke, having told his companion beforehand what he had to do, stole quietly across the room as far as the window, drove a dagger into the Prince’s back with so much force that it passed right through his body, and catching him quickly in his arms he hurled him out of the window.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Marquis of Monferrato, a man of high worth and gonfalonier[51] of the church, had passed beyond seas on the occasion of a general crusade undertaken by the Christians, arms in hand, and it being one day discoursed of his merit at the court of King Phillippe le Borgne,[52] who was then making ready to depart France upon the same crusade, it was avouched by a gentleman present that there was not under the stars a couple to match with the marquis and his lady, for that, even as he was renowned among knights for every virtue, so was she the fairest and noblest of all the ladies in the world. These words took such hold upon the mind of the King of France that, without having seen the marchioness, he fell of a sudden ardently in love with her and determined to take ship for the crusade, on which he was to go, no otherwhere than at Genoa, in order that, journeying thither by land, he might have an honourable occasion of visiting the marchioness, doubting not but that, the marquis being absent, he might avail to give effect to his desire. [Footnote 51: Or standard-bearer.] [Footnote 52: _i.e._ the One-eyed (syn. le myope, the short-sighted, the Italian word [_Il Bornio_] having both meanings), _i.e._ Philip II. of France, better known as Philip Augustus.] As he had bethought himself, so he put his thought into execution; for, having sent forward all his power, he set out, attended only by some few gentlemen, and coming within a day's journey of the marquis's domains, despatched a vauntcourier to bid the lady expect him the following morning to dinner. The marchioness, who was well advised and discreet, replied blithely that in this he did her the greatest of favours and that he would be welcome and after bethought herself what this might mean that such a king should come to visit her in her husband's absence, nor was she deceived in the conclusion to which she came, to wit, that the report of her beauty drew him thither. Nevertheless, like a brave lady as she was, she determined to receive him with honour and summoning to her counsels sundry gentlemen of those who remained there, with their help, she let provide for everything needful. The ordinance of the repast and of the viands she reserved to herself alone and having forthright caused collect as many hens as were in the country, she bade her cooks dress various dishes of these alone for the royal table.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Hence, albeit we have referred many times to the doings of Calandrino, they are invariably so amusing, as Filostrato pointed out a little earlier, that I shall venture to add a further tale to those we have already heard about him. I could easily have told it in some other way, using fictitious names, had I wished to do so; but since by departing from the truth of what actually happened, the storyteller greatly diminishes the pleasure of his listeners, I shall turn for support to my opening remarks, and tell it in its proper form. Niccolò Cornacchini,1 a wealthy fellow citizen of ours, owned various lands including a beautiful estate at Camerata,2 on which he caused a fine and splendid mansion to be built, commissioning Bruno and Buffalmacco to paint it throughout with frescoes. So enormous was the task with which they were confronted that they first enlisted the aid of Nello and Calandrino, then they all got down to work. Now, albeit one of the rooms contained a bed and other pieces of furniture, nobody was living on the premises except for an elderly housekeeper, and accordingly every so often one of Niccolò’s sons, a young bachelor whose name was Filippo, was in the habit of turning up with some young lady or other, who would minister to his pleasures for a day or two and then be sent away. On one of these visits, he arrived at the mansion with a girl, Niccolosa by name, who was kept by a scoundrelly fellow called Mangione at a house in Camaldoli,3 whence he let her out on hire. This girl had a beautiful figure, dressed well, and, for a woman of her sort, was very polite and well spoken. And one day, around noon, having emerged from the bedroom in a flimsy white shift, her hair tied up in a bun, she happened to be washing her hands and face at a well in the courtyard when Calandrino came to the well for some water. He gave her a friendly greeting, which she acknowledged, then she began to stare at him, not because she found him the least bit attractive, but because she was fascinated by his odd appearance. Calandrino returned her gaze, and on seeing how beautiful she was, began to think of various excuses for not returning with the water to his companions. However, not knowing who she was, he was afraid to address her, and the girl, perceiving that he was still staring at her, mischievously rolled her eyes at him a couple of times and fetched a few little sighs, so that Calandrino instantly fell in love with her and stood rooted to the spot till she was called inside by Filippo. On returning to his work, Calandrino did nothing but heave one huge sigh after another; and Bruno, who always kept an eye on him because he found him so entertaining, noticed this and said:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Saladin perceived that the fellow had ingeniously side-stepped the trap he had set before him, and he therefore decided to make a clean breast of his needs, and see if the Jew would come to his assistance. This he did, freely admitting what he had intended to do, but for the fact that the Jew had answered him so discreetly. Melchizedek gladly provided the Sultan with the money he required. The Sultan later paid him back in full, in addition to which he showered magnificent gifts upon him, made him his lifelong friend, and maintained him at his court in a state of importance and honour. FOURTH STORYA monk, having committed a sin deserving of very severe punishment, escapes the consequences by politely reproaching his abbot with the very same fault. No sooner did Filomena stop talking, having reached the end of her tale, than Dioneo,1 who was sitting next to her and already knew it was his turn to address them because of the order in which they were speaking, began in the following manner without awaiting further instructions from the queen: Sweet ladies, if I have properly understood your unanimous intention, we are here in order to bring pleasure to each other with our storytelling. I therefore contend that each must be allowed (as our queen agreed just now that we might) to tell whatever story we think most likely to amuse. So having heard how Abraham’s soul was saved through the good advice of Jehannot de Chevigny, and how Melchizedek employed his wisdom in defending his riches from the wily manoeuvres of Saladin, I intend, without fear of your disapproval, to give you a brief account of the clever way in which a monk saved his body from very severe punishment. In Lunigiana,2 which is not all that far from where we are now, there is a monastery that once had a greater supply of monks and of saintliness than it nowadays has, and in it there was a young monk whose freshness and vitality neither fasts nor vigils could impair. One day, about noon, when all the other monks were asleep, he chanced to be taking a solitary stroll round the walls of the monastery, which lay in a very lonely spot, when his eyes came to rest on a strikingly beautiful girl, perhaps some local farmhand’s daughter, who was going about the fields collecting wild herbs. No sooner did he see her, than he was fiercely assailed by carnal desire.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Consumed by the flames of love, they longed for one another with equal ardour till Fortune, as though deciding that they should be united, found a way for them to dispel the fears and apprehensions by which they were impeded. About a mile away from Trapani itself, Messer Amerigo kept a very charming property, to which his wife, with their daughter and various other ladies and maidservants, frequently went by way of recreation. Having gone there one day when the weather was very hot, taking Pietro with them, they suddenly found that the sky had become overcast with thick dark clouds, such as we occasionally observe in the course of the summer. And so the lady, not wishing to be caught there by the storm, set off with her companions along the road leading back to Trapani, making all the haste they could. But Pietro and Violante, being young and fit, soon found themselves well ahead of the girl’s mother and the other ladies, perhaps because they were prompted no less by their love than by fear of the weather. And when they had drawn so far ahead of the others that they were almost out of sight, there was a series of thunderclaps, 6 immediately followed by a very heavy hailstorm, from which the lady and her companions took shelter in the house of a farm-labourer. Pietro and the girl, having nowhere more convenient to take refuge, entered an old, abandoned cottage that was almost totally in ruins; and, having both squeezed in beneath the fragment of roof that still remained intact, they were forced by the inadequacy of their shelter to huddle up close to one another. The contact of their bodies made them pluck up the courage to disclose their amorous yearnings, Pietro being the first to broach the subject by saying: ‘Would to God that this hailstorm would never come to an end, so that I could remain here for ever!’ ‘That would suit me very well,’ said the girl. Having uttered these words, they went on to hold and squeeze one another’s hands, after which they proceeded to embrace and then to exchange kisses, while the hailstorm continued. But to cut a long story short, by the time the weather improved they had tasted Love’s ultimate delights and arranged to meet again in secret for their mutual pleasure. The cottage was not far from the city gate, and once the storm was over they went and waited there for the lady, and returned with her to the house. Every so often, employing the maximum of secrecy and discretion, they would meet again, to their considerable enjoyment, in the same place as before. But what happened in the end was that the girl became pregnant, much to the dismay of both parties, whereupon she took various measures to frustrate the course of nature and miscarry, but all to no effect. Pietro, in fear of his life, made up his mind to flee, and told her so.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The ladies heaved many a sigh over the fair lady’s several adventures: but who knows what their motives may have been? Perhaps some of them were sighing, not so much because they felt sorry for her, but because they longed to be married no less often than she had been.38 In his scattered references to the lady-mernbers of the lieta brigata, the author consistently emphasizes the strength of their moral character and their adherence to Christian precepts, and thus his suggestion that their reaction to the tale of Alatiel may possibly be attributed to envy rather than to pity neatly highlights the ambivalence commonly to be found in attitudes towards sexual relationships. What he is intimating, in fact, is that the desire for a variety of sexual experiences is a natural one, even among the most upright and God-fearing of Christians, and in recounting the story of Alatiel’s adventures he gives form and consistency to the unspoken sexual fantasies of his readership. That capacity for converting fantasy into apparent reality is one of the reasons for the Decameron’s enduring popularity, for its timeless relevance to the human condition. But Boccaccio’s marginal comment on the ladies’ reaction to the tale of Alatiel has to be read in conjunction with the story’s lengthy preamble, one of the longest in the whole of the Decameron, where the narrator, Panfilo, presents an elegant disquisition on the subject of happiness, thus foreshadowing the anagrammatic relevance of the name of the heroine. The burden of his argument is that men and women should rest content with whatever has been granted to them by ‘the One who alone knows what we need and has the power to provide it for us’. From this it follows that those ladies who go to extraordinary lengths to improve the attractions bestowed on them by Nature are courting, if not disaster, at all events a state of unhappiness. Physical beauty can be a source of suffering, and the story of Alatiel, which follows, is represented by Panfilo as a cautionary tale. This no doubt is the reason why Branca and others see the vicissitudes of Alatiel as a demonstration of the misfortune that physical beauty inevitably brings to its possessor. But as the author makes abundantly clear, the misfortunes of Alatiel are of brief duration. Whenever she is bereft of one of her lovers, she is very quickly ‘consoled’ by his successor, and she herself is almost totally unaffected by the trail of death and destruction that, by the accident of her beauty, she leaves in the wake of her amorous peregrinations. One commentator has likened her to a queen-bee, interpreting her various adventures as a kind of repeated copulative ritual leading ineluctably to the death of her successive partners:

• From Trash (1988)

  I was thinking about Bobby, remembering her sitting, smoking, squint-eyed, and me looking down at the way her thighs shaped in her jeans. I have always loved women in blue jeans, worn jeans, worn particularly in that way that makes the inseam fray, and Bobby’s seams had that fine white sheen that only comes after long restless evenings spent jiggling one’s thighs one against the other, the other against the bar stool. After a year as my sometimes lover, Bobby’s nerves were wearing as thin as her seams. She always seemed to be looking to the other women in the bar, checking out their eyes to see if, in fact, they thought her as pussy-whipped as she thought herself, for the way she could not seem to finally settle me down to playing the wife I was supposed to be. Bobby was a wild-eyed woman, proud of her fame for running women ragged—all the women who had fallen in love with her and followed her around long after she had lost all interest in them. Hanging out at soft-ball games on lazy spring afternoons, Bobby would look over at me tossing my head and talking to some other woman and grind her thighs together in impatience. The woman was as profoundly uncomfortable with my sexual desire as my determined independence. But nothing so disturbed her as the idea other people could see both in the way I tossed my hair, swung my hips, and would not always come when she called. Bobby believed lust was a trashy lower-class impulse, and she so wanted to be nothing like that. It meant the one tool she could have used to control me was the very one she could not let herself use. Oh, Bobby loved to fuck me. Bobby loved to beat my ass, but it bothered her that we both enjoyed it so much. Early on in our relationship, she established a pattern of having me over for the evening and strictly enforcing a rule against sex outside the bedroom. Bobby wanted dinner—preferably Greek or Chinese takeout—and at least two hours of television. Then there had to be a bath, bath powder and tooth brushing, though she knew I preferred her un-bathed and gritty, tasting of the tequila she sipped through dinner. I was not supposed to touch her until we entered the sanctuary of her bedroom, that bedroom lit only by the arc lamp in the alley outside. Only in that darkness could I bite and scratch and call her name. Only in that darkness would Bobby let herself open to passion.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘My sweet Caterina, the only way I can suggest is for you to come to the balcony overlooking your father’s garden, or better still, to sleep there. Although it is very high, if I knew that you were spending the night on the balcony, I would try without fail to climb up and reach you.’ ‘If you are daring enough to climb to the balcony,’ Caterina replied, ‘I am quite sure that I can arrange to sleep there.’ Ricciardo assured her that he was, whereupon they snatched a single kiss and went their separate ways. It was already near the end of May, and on the morning after her conversation with Ricciardo, the girl began complaining to her mother that she had been unable to sleep on the previous night because of the heat. ‘What are you talking about, child?’ said her mother. ‘It wasn’t in the least hot.’ To which Caterina said: ‘Mother, if you were to add “in my opinion”, then perhaps you would be right. But you must remember that young girls feel the heat much more than older women.’ ‘That is so, my child,’ said her mother, ‘but what do you expect me to do about it? I can’t make it hot or cold for you, just like that. You have to take the weather as it comes, according to the season. Perhaps tonight it will be cooler, and you will sleep better.’ ‘God grant that you are right,’ said Caterina, ‘but it is not usual for the nights to grow any cooler as the summer approaches.’ ‘Then what do you want us to do about it?’ inquired the lady. ‘If you and father were to consent,’ replied Caterina, ‘I should like to have a little bed made up for me on the balcony outside his room, overlooking the garden. I should have the nightingale to sing me off to sleep, it would be much cooler there, and I should be altogether better off than I am in your room.’ Whereupon her mother said: ‘Cheer up, my child; I shall speak to your father about it, and we shall do whatever he decides.’ The lady reported their conversation to Messer Lizio, who, perhaps because of his age, was inclined to be short-tempered. ‘What’s all this about being lulled to sleep by the nightingale?’ he exclaimed. ‘She’ll be sleeping to the song of the cicadas if I hear any more of her nonsense.’ Having heard what he had said, on the following night, more to spite her father than because she was feeling hot, Caterina not only stayed awake herself but, by complaining incessantly of the heat, also prevented her mother from sleeping. So next morning, her mother went straight to Messer Lizio, and said:

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  It soon became evident that the supreme passion of his pontificate was to advance the fortunes of his children.790 His parental relations were not merely the subject of rumor; they are vouched for by irresistible documentary proof. Alexander was the acknowledged father of five children by Vanozza de Cataneis: Pedro Luis, Juan, Caesar, Lucretia, Joffré and, perhaps, Pedro Ludovico. The briefs issued by Sixtus IV. legitimating Caesar and Ludovico are still extant.791 Two bulls were issued by Alexander himself in 1493, bearing on Caesar’s parentage. The first, declaring him to be the son of Vanozza by a former husband, was intended to remove the objections the sacred college naturally felt in admitting to its number one of uncertain birth. In the second, Alexander announced him to be his own son.792 Tiring of Vanozza, who was

• From Trash (1988)

  Her name was Victoria, and she lived alone. She cut her hair into a soft cloud of curls and wore white blouses with buttoned-down collars. I saw her all the time at the bookstore, climbing out of her baby-blue VW with a big leather book bag and a cane in her left hand. There were pictures up on the wall at the back of the store. Every one of them showed her sitting on or standing by a horse, the reins loose in her hand and her eyes focused far off. The riding hat hid her curls. The jacket pushed her breasts down but emphasized her hips. She had a ribbon pinned to the coat. A little card beneath the pictures identified her as the steeplechase champion of the southern division. In one picture she was jumping. Her hat was gone, her hair blown back, and the horse’s legs stretched high above the ground. Her teeth shone white and perfect, and she looked as fierce as a bobcat going for prey. Looking at the pictures made me hurt. She came in once while I was standing in front of them and gave me a quick, wry grin. “You ride?” Her cane made a hollow thumping sound on the floor. I didn’t look at it. “For fun, once or twice with a girlfriend.” Her eyes were enormous and as black as her hair. Her face looked thinner than it had in the pictures, her neck longer. She grimaced and leaned on the cane. Under her tan she looked pale. She shrugged. “I miss it myself.” She said it in a matter-of-fact tone, but her eyes glittered. I looked up at the pictures again. “I’ll bet.” I blushed, and looked back at her uncomfortably. “Odds are I’ll ride again.” Her jeans bulged around the knee brace. “But not jump, and I did love jumping. Always felt like I was at war with the ground, allied with the sky, trying to stay up in the air.” She grinned wide, and a faint white scar showed at the corner of her mouth. “Where you from?” I could feel the heat in my face but ignored it. “Virginia.” Her eyes focused on my jacket, the backpack hanging from my arm, and down to where I had my left hip pushed out, my weight on my right foot. “Haven’t been there for a while, though.” She looked away, looked tired and sad. What I wanted in that moment I will never be able to explain—to feed her or make love to her or just lighten the shadows under her eyes—all that, all that and more. “You ever eat any Red Velvet Cake?” I licked my lips and shifted my weight so that I wasn’t leaning to the side. I looked into her eyes. “Red Velvet Cake?” Her eyes were friendly, soft, and black as the deepest part of the night.

• From Trash (1988)

  “Tribadism,” I’d named it, trying to position myself so that I could enjoy it as much as she did. I really wanted to taste her, to put my tongue between her thighs, into her armpits, under her chin and behind her ears. Her hipbone hurt me and she kept lifting her torso so that I couldn’t even feel the lush heat of her full breasts. I wrestled for a while, licking her salty neck, wanting to bite her and imagining that she was enjoying my tongue. “Christ! You’re making me sticky,” Judy complained. She never stopping talking even while she was grinding her labia into my hipbone. “. . . I’m going to Gainesville on Wednesday. . . . Oh! Want to talk to Jackie about going with me . . . oh . . . you too maybe . . . oh . . . oh . . . horses . . . want to go riding . . . want to go riding with me . . . I love to ride . . . Oh!” It made me crazy, as if sex were a set of calisthenics one did to trigger sleep. When she came, she went rigid and silent, her body rising up and off of me stiffly, her eyes unfocused. I wondered what she thought then, but didn’t ask. When she came back to herself, she rolled over as if it were now my turn to climb on top and do the same. I pretended to fall asleep instead just to get her to be quiet, to lie still beside me while I rested my hands on the soft swell of her hips and watched the streetlight flicker as the wind blew the leaves around on the trees outside. She was a lawyer’s daughter from Miami and not a bad person. Not a bad person at all, I told myself, just different from me, very different from me.