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 Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I was scarce twelve years old, before that part which she wanted so much to keep out of harm’s way, made me feel its impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play; already had it put forth the signs of forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over it, which had often fluttered, and I might also say, grown under my constant touch and visitation, so pleased was I with what I took to be a kind of title to womanhood, that state I pined to be entered of, for the pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the growing importance of that part to me, and the new sensations in it, demolished at once all my girlish play-things and amusements. Nature now pointed me strongly to more solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not mistake the spot I wanted a playfellow in. “I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of coming at the object of my longings, and used to shut myself up, to indulge in solitude some tender meditation on the pleasure I strongly perceived the overture of, in feeling and examining what nature assured me must be the chosen avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted after. “But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew the fire that consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at length to the insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm that tormented me, I seized it with my fingers, teazing it to no end. Sometimes, in the furious excitations of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my thighs abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief, till finding my illusion, I shut and squeezed them together again, burning and fretting.

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

  I asked in surprise. “You have not yet signed the papers.” “Papers—what papers?” “Oh, I see, you want to give it up,” she said, “well then, we will let it go.” “But Wanda,” I said, “you know that nothing gives me greater happiness than to serve you, to be your slave. I would give everything for the sake of feeling myself wholly in your power, even unto death—” “How beautiful you are,” she whispered, “when you speak so enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love with you than ever and you want me to be dominant, stern, and cruel. I am afraid, it will be impossible for me to be so.” “I am not afraid,” I replied smiling, “where are the papers?’” “So that you may know what it means to be absolutely in my power, I have drafted a second agreement in which you declare that you have decided to kill yourself. In that way I can even kill you, if I so desire.” “Give them to me.” While I was unfolding the documents and reading them, Wanda got pen and ink. She then sat down beside me with her arm about my neck, and looked over my shoulder at the paper. The first one read: AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI “Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all the rights appertaining thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her slave until such time that she herself sets him at liberty again. “As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor, and he is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes, and to obey every one of her commands; he is always to be submissive to his mistress, and is to consider her every sign of favor as an extraordinary mercy. “Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also is herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her or merely for the sake of whiling away the time. Should she so desire, she may kill him whenever she wishes; in short, he is her unrestricted property. “Should Mme. von Dunajew ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or suffered as her slave, and promises never under any circumstances and in no wise to think of vengeance or retaliation. “Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some cruelty toward her slave.” Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date of the present day.

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

  The pretext, however, passed, and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had not a male creature in the house. “As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction probably proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the bedclothes, in all the loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to the old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing, self-touching self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of self knowledge I could devise, in search of the pleasure that fled before me, and tantalized with that unknown something that was out of my reach; thus all only served to enflame myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst the one thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I could have bit my finger for representing it so ill.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  A constant stream of aspiring young actors, writers, and directors came to Hollywood with common dreams, trying to leverage whatever ability or looks they might have in a market already overwhelmed by beautiful and talented and chronically unemployed young people. Many of them were rather poorly educated—they had left school to gamble on stardom—but they were smart, talented, and desperately ambitious. Scientology promised these neophytes an entry into the gated community of celebrity. The church claimed to have a method for getting ahead; just as enticing was the whispered assertion that a network of Scientologists existed at the upper levels of the entertainment industry eager to advance like-minded believers—a claim that never had much to support it, but was not entirely untrue. Scientology was a small but growing subculture in the Hollywood studios. Kirstie Alley was an aspiring actress from Wichita who left the University of Kansas in her sophomore year, then struggled with an addiction to cocaine. She says that a single auditing session cured her habit. “Without Scientology, I would be dead,” she declared. The testimonials of such celebrities would lead many curious seekers to follow their example. Posters with the faces of television and movie stars were placed outside Scientology churches and missions, saying, “I AM A SCIENTOLOGIST ... COME IN AND FIND OUT WHY.” In the Hollywood trade magazine Variety, Scientology offered courses promising to help neophyte actors “increase your self-confidence” and “make it in the industry.” Scientologists stood outside Central Casting, where actors sign up for roles as extras, passing out flyers for workshops on how to find an agent or get into the Screen Actors Guild. Courses at the Celebrity Centre focused on communication and self-presentation skills, which were especially prized in the entertainment industry. The drills and training routines would have felt somewhat familiar to anyone who had done scene work in an acting class. Many actors, at once insecure but competitive by nature, were looking for an advantage, which Scientology promised to give them. The fact that anyone was interested in them at all must have come as a welcome surprise. Others who passed through Scientology at the same time as Paul Haggis were actors Tom Berenger, Christopher Reeve, and Anne Francis; and musicians Lou Rawls, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Bono, and Gordon Lightfoot. None stayed long. Jerry Seinfeld took a communication course, which he still credits with helping him as a comedian. Elvis Presley bought some books as well as some services he never actually availed himself of.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  The meeting started, and we had to stop. But my mind continued. I started compiling a list in my head of authors that I could try to use against her. I wasn’t about to lose this easily. I paid attention to nothing that was said during the meeting. A passing mention was made about my return, I think. But my mind was occupied. As soon as we got out into the hallway and started our walk together to our classes, I picked up again where we had left off. “D.H. Lawrence?” “Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I read that in high school because I thought it would be particularly scandalous. It wasn’t what I expected.” “E.M. Forster?” She actually stopped when I said his name. “Any person worth a damn has read Howard’s End. Fact.” I glanced around quickly to make sure no one was around to hear the damn. Thankfully, no one was on our end of the hallway. “Less casual swearing in the hallway, ma’am. You don’t want to get fired before you even get hired.” “Are you going to turn me in?” she asked, and I could have sworn she batted her eyes. “No, ma’am,” I said, knowing that even though I wasn’t a blusher, I was probably blushing now. She was sexy. “There you go with that ‘ma’am’ shit again,” she said, putting very clear emphasis on the word shit. She wasn’t going to back down. “Are you normally this defiant?” I asked, wanting to jump her right there in the hallway. She shook her head, slightly. “I guess you just bring out the best of me,” she said. With that, she turned and walked into her classroom, giving me a splendid look at her ass. God, when did I become an ass guy? Better yet, when did I become the kind of guy who had the hots for a married co-worker? Classes may have started but that didn’t keep us from communicating. I felt a little childish for basically texting her as soon as I sat down at my desk. Wharton... I figured I could judge by the amount of time it would take her to answer whether or not she was looking the author up. Even if she had read it, if she took a while I would just assume so and hold it against her. Her response was immediate. I thought we already discussed you asking me about Pulitzer winners? Dammit. Age of Innocence. I needed someone who hadn’t received any significant awards. Time for a curveball. Collins. Who? she asked. Then followed with, Jackie Collins? Do you take me for a reader of trashy novels? No, not Jackie. Suzanne. I’m not familiar with that name, she replied. This time I was shocked. If you tell the students that, they might lynch you. Why? What did she write? Oh, just this little series about games. And hunger. Huh? The Hunger Games! Oh god. I think I knew that. And you haven’t read the series??

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “Okay. Well you have to read Dubliners then. Short stories, mostly depressing.” “Sounds like my kind of pleasure reading.” “Oh shut up. You’ll love them. He’s my favorite author.” “That’s a pretty bold statement coming from someone who has read so many different books.” “I can be a fairly bold person.” “I can see that,” I said, wondering why certain things she said gave me goose bumps—the good kind. “So you promise you’ll read it?” she asked as we neared the lunchroom. The sound of the students waiting in line was almost as offensive as the smell of fried food wafting through the halls. “I do. I’ll just have to hit up my local public library and find it. It’s probably covered in dust.” She jabbed me with her elbow. “I have two copies at the house. Come by after work sometime tonight and I’ll let you borrow one.” “Are you sure your husband won’t mind if I stopped by?” “He won’t be home.” And with that, she smiled and walked into the lunchroom.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I don’t know why the hell I asked for five pounds, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. “You have one of these,” I said, as we were cleaning the prawns together at my kitchen sink. I ran my finger laterally along its body, pointing out the dark line that needed to be cleaned out. She frowned, looking down at the prawn she was holding. “It’s called a mud vein.” “A mud vein,” she repeated. “Doesn’t sound like a compliment.” “Maybe not to some people.” She de-headed her shrimp with a flick of her knife and tossed it in the bowl. “It’s your darkness that pulls me in. Your mud vein. But sometimes having a mud vein will kill you.” She set down the knife and washed her hands, drying them on the back of her jeans. “I have to go.” “Sure,” I said. I didn’t move until I heard the screen door slam. I wasn’t upset that my words had run her off. She didn’t like to be found out. But she’d be back. Nick’s Book She didn’t come back. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care. There were plenty of women. Plenty. There were women everywhere I looked. They all had skin and bones, and I’m sure some of them even had silver streaks in their hair. And if they didn’t have a silver streak in their hair I’m sure I could convince them to put it there. But there is something about the process of convincing yourself that you don’t care that just confirms even more that you do. Every time I passed the window in my kitchen I found myself looking up to see if she was standing in the rain, judging the weeds poking out of the driveway. I looked at those weeds so much that eventually I went out there in the rain and pulled them up one by one. It took me all afternoon and I got a nasty head cold. I was cleaning up my driveway for a woman. I wanted to go look for her, but she’d told me little to nothing about herself. I could hold the five things she’d said in the palm of my hand, and still find plenty of room. Her name was Brenna. She came from the desert. She liked to be on top. She ate bread by pulling off little pieces and placing them in the center of her tongue. I had asked her questions, and she had skillfully turned them back on me. I had been eager to give her answers—too eager—and in the process I’d forgotten to collect answers from her. She had played me like a narcissistic trombone. Tooting, tooting, tooting my own horn. She must have been thinking what a fool I was the entire time. Toot, toot. I went back to the park, hoping to run into her again.

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

  The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a manly proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of each pap, the idea of a rose about to blow. Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of his limbs, that exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the loins, where the waist ends and the rounding swell of the hips commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth, and dazzling white, burnishes on; the stretch-over firm, plump, ripe flesh, that crimped’ and ran into dimples at the least pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid over on the surface of the most polished ivory. His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy roundness, gradually tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support that beauteous frame at the bottom of which I could not, without some remains of terror, some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible machine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender parts of mine, that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but behold it now! crest fallen, reclining its half-caped vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness, branched veins, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a squat thickness, languid, and borne up from between his thighs, by its globular appendage, that wondrous treasure bag of nature’s sweets, which revelled round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, perfected the prospect, and altogether formed the most interesting moving picture in nature, and surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnished by the painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchased at immense prices; whilst the sight of them in actual life is scarce sovereignly tasted by any but the few whom nature has endowed with a fire of imagination, warmly pointed by a truth of judgment to the spring-head, the originals of beauty, of nature’s unequalled composition, above all the imitations of art, or the reach of wealth to pay their price.

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

  In 563, the forty-second year of his age, Columba prompted by a passion for travelling and a zeal for the spread of Christianity,81 sailed with twelve fellow-apostles to the West of Scotland, possibly on invitation of the provincial king, to whom he was related by blood. He was presented with the island of Hy, commonly called Iona,82 near the Western coast of Scotland about fifty miles West from Oban. It is an inhospitable island, three miles and a half long and a mile and a half broad, partly cultivated, partly covered with hill pasture, retired dells, morass and rocks, now in possession of the Duke of Argyll, numbering about three hundred Protestant inhabitants, an Established Presbyterian Church, and a Free Church. The neighboring island of Staffa, though smaller and uninhabited, is more interesting to the ordinary tourist, and its Fingal’s Cave is one of the most wonderful specimens of the architectural skill of nature; it looks like a Gothic cathedral, 66 feet high, 42 feet broad, and 227 feet long, consisting of majestic basalt columns, an arched roof, and an open portal towards the ocean, which dashes in and out in a constant succession of waves, sounding solemn anthems in this unique temple of nature. Columba and his fellow-monks must have passed it on their missionary wanderings; but they were too much taken up with heaven to look upon the wonders of the earth, and the cave remained comparatively unknown to the world till 1772. Those islands wore the same aspect in the sixth century as now, with the exception of the woods, which have disappeared. Walter Scott (in the "Lord of the Isles") has thrown the charm of his poetry over the Hebridean archipelago, from which proceeded the Christianization of Scotland.83

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I wasn’t sure if it was a pickup line. It was embarrassingly truthful. Just saying it made my lips pucker like I was holding in a mouthful of lemon pulp. I eyed the worn leather messenger bag at her hip. “What’s in the bag?” I asked. I was starting to get a feeling about her. Like I knew what she was before she told me. “A computer.” I didn’t peg her as a college student. She had too much attitude to be a professional. Self-employed, I was guessing. “You’re a writer, too,” I said. She nodded. “So we speak the same language,” I offered. She had a strip of silver running through her brown hair. More proof, it seemed, that she was born for winter. “You’re John Karde,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture. In Barnes and Noble.” “Well, that’s embarrassing.” “Only if I don’t like sappy women’s fiction,” she said. “Which I do.” “Do you write it?” She shook her head, and I swear that sliver of silver glimmered in the dying sun. My nerdy writer mind immediately said mithril. “I’m working on my first real novel. It feels pretty angry.” “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I offered. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I mean, sure she was stunning—but it was more than that. She was a house with no windows. You could go crazy in one of those. I wanted in. She eyed my dog. “I can drop him off, my house is on the way to town.” She paused only to check her watch before nodding. We walked in silence for a few blocks. She kept her head down, choosing the sidewalk over the rest of the world. I wondered if she liked the cracks, or if she just didn’t want to meet the eyes of the people we passed. It might have felt uncomfortable, our quiet walking, but it didn’t. I suspected her to be a woman of few words. Muses often spoke with their eyes and their bodies. The power they supply is electrifying in itself. They set fire to your synapses.

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

  "As I got up I felt so weak and exhausted that it seemed as if I were walking in a trance, so, without exactly knowing whither I wended my steps, I mechanically followed some persons in front of me, and, a few moments afterwards, I unexpectedly found myself in the green room. "The saloon was almost empty. At the further end a few dandies were grouped round a young man in evening dress, whose back was turned towards me. I recognized one of them as Briancourt." "What, the General's son?" "Precisely." "I remember him. He always dressed in such a conspicuous way." "Quite so. That evening, for instance, when every gentleman was in black, he, on the contrary, wore a white flannel suit; as usual, a very open Byron-like collar, and a red Lavalliére cravat tied in a huge bow." "Yes, for he had a most lovely neck and throat." "He was very handsome, although I, for myself, had always tried to avoid him. He had a way of ogling which made you feel quite uncomfortable. You laugh, but it is quite true. There are some men who, when staring at a woman, seem all the while to be undressing her. Briancourt had that indecent way of looking at everybody. I vaguely felt his eyes all over me, and that made me shy." "But you were acquainted with him, were you not?" "Yes, we had been at some Kindergarten or other together, but, being three years younger than he, I was always in a lower class. Anyhow, that evening, upon perceiving him, I was about to leave the room, when the gentleman in the evening suit turned round. It was the pianist. As our eyes met again, I felt a strange flutter within me, and the fascination of his looks was so powerful that I was hardly able to move. Then, attracted onwards as I was, instead of quitting the green room, I walked on slowly, almost reluctantly, towards the group. The musician, without staring, did not, however, turn his eyes away from me. I was quivering from head to foot. He seemed to be slowly drawing me to him, and I must confess the feeling was such a pleasant one that I yielded entirely to it. "Just then Briancourt, who had not seen me, turned round, and recognizing me, nodded in his off-hand way. As he did so, the pianist's eyes brightened, and he whispered something to him, whereupon the General's son, without giving him any answer, turned towards me, and, taking me by the hand, said: "'Camille, allow me to introduce you to my friend Réné. M. Réné Teleny—M. Camille Des Grieux.' "I bowed, blushing.

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

  In short, it stood an object of terror and delight. But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the strictness of his home breeding, and the little time he had been in town not having afforded him one; was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly stocked with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversized machine was very fit to lay in ruins. But it was now of the latest to deliberate, for, by this time, the young fellow, over heated with the present objects, and too high metled to be longer curbed in by that modesty and awe which had hitherto restrained him, ventured, under the stronger impulse, and instructive promptership of nature alone, to slip his hands, trembling with eager impetuous desires, under my petticoats; and seeing, I suppose, nothing extremely severe in my looks, to stop or dash him, he feels out, and seizes, gently, the center spot of his ardours. Oh then! the fiery touch of his lingers determines me, and my fears melting away before the glowing intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and yield all liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable movement giving my petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair, too open to be missed. He is now upon me: I had placed myself with a jerk under him, as commodious and open as possible to his attempts, which were untoward enough, for his machine, meeting with no inlet, bore and battered stiffly against me in random pushes, now above, now below, now beside his point; till, burning with impatience from its irritating touches, I guided gently, with my hand, this furious fescue to where my young novice was now to be taught his first lesson of pleasure. Thus he nicked, at length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made to find no breach impracticable, and mine, though so often entered, was still far from wide enough to take him easily in. By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy machine was so critically pointed, that, feeling him fore-right against the tender opening, a favourable motion from me met his timely thrust, by which the lips of it, strenuously dilated, gave way to his thus assisted impetuosity, so that we might both feel that he had gained a lodgment. Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent, and, to me, most painful piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so far in, as to be now tolerably secure of his entrance: here he stuck, and I now felt such a mixture of pleasure and pain, as there is no giving a definition of.

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

  "Therese," Rodin said to me several days later, "I am going to install you near my daughter; in this way, you will avoid all frictions with the other two women, and I intend to give you three hundred pounds wages." Such a post was, in my situation, a kind of godsend; inflamed by the desire to restore Rosalie to righteousness, and perhaps even her father too Were I able to attain some influence over him, I repented not of what I had just done... Rodin, having had me dress myself, conducted me at once to where his daughter was; Rosalie received me with effusions of joy, and I was promptly established. Ere a week was gone by I had begun to labor at the conversions after which I thirsted, but Rodin's intransigence defeated all my efforts. "Do not believe," was the response he made to my wise counsels, "that the kind of deference I showed to the virtue in you proves that I either esteem virtue or have the desire to favor it over vice. Think nothing of the sort, Therese, 'twould be to deceive yourself; on the basis of what I have done in your regard, anyone who was to maintain, as consequential to my behavior, the importance or the necessity of virtue would fall into the very largest error, and sorry I would be were you to fancy that such is my fashion of thinking. The rustic hovel to which I repair for shelter when, during the hunt, the excessive heat of the sun's rays falls perpendicularly upon me, that hut is certainly not to be mistaken for a superior building: its worth is merely circumstantial: I am exposed to some sort of danger, I find something which affords protection, I use it, but is this something the grander on that account? can it be the less contemptible? In a totally vicious society, virtue would be totally worthless; our societies not being entirely of this species, one must absolutely either play with virtue or make use of it so as to have less to dread from its faithful followers.

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

  "Teleny returned me my kisses with the passionate eagerness of despair. His lips were on fire, his love seemed to have changed into a raging fever. I don't know what had come over me, but I felt that pleasure could kill, but not calm me. My head was all aglow! "There are two kinds of lascivious feelings, both equally strong and overpowering: the one is the fervent, carnal lust of the senses, enkindled in the genital organs and mounting to the brain, making human beings 'Swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel Divinity within them breeding wings Wherewith to scorn the earth.' The other is the cold libidinousness of fancy, the keen and gall-like irradiation of the brain which parches the healthy blood. "The first, the strong concupiscence of lusty youth— 'as with new wine intoxicated,' natural to the flesh, is satisfied as soon as men take largely 'their fill of love and love's disport,' and the heavily-laden anther has sturdily shaken forth the seed that clogged it; and then they feel as our first parents did, when dewy sleep 'Oppressed them, wearied with their amorous play.' The body.then so delightfully light seems to rest on 'earth's freshest, softest lap,' and the slothful yet half-awakened mind broods over its slumbering shell. "The second, kindled in the head, 'bred of unkindly fumes,' is the lechery of senility—a morbid craving, like the hunger of surfeited gluttony. The senses, like Messalina, 'lassata sed non satiata,' ever tingling, keep hankering after the impossible. The spermatic ejaculations, far from calming the body, only irritate it, for the exciting influence of a salacious fancy continues after the anther has yielded all its seed. Even if acrid blood comes instead of the balmy, cream-like fluid, it brings with it nothing but a painful irritation. If, unlike as in styriasis, an erection does not take place, and the phallus remains limp and lifeless, still the nervous system is no less convulsed by impotent desire and lechery—a mirage of the over-heated brain, no less shattering because it is effete. "These two feelings combined together are something akin to what I underwent as, holding Teleny clasped against my throbbing, heaving breast, I felt within me the contagion of his eager longing and of his overpowering sadness. "I had taken off my friend's shirt collar and cravat to see and to feel his beautiful bare neck, then little by little I stripped him of all his clothes, till at last he remained naked in my embrace. "What a model of voluptuous comeliness he was, with his strong and muscular shoulders, his broad and swelling chest, his skin of a pearly whiteness, as soft and as fresh as the petals of a waterlily, his limbs rounded like those of Leotard, with whom every woman was in love.

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

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

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Because her hair was pulled back, the pearly white skin of her neck was exposed. God, I was starting to have serious vampire thoughts. I will kiss that neck , I told myself. More than once . I will. I’d never promised myself that I would kiss the body of a married woman before, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess. There was something about her neck that made me want to claim it. So Maniac Marco could go fuck himself for all I cared. Knowing what I did about him, he probably wished he could fuck himself. Arrogant prick. I snuck my way into the third row and took a seat behind her, one seat over to her left. When I sat down, I felt like I had immersed myself in a field of lilies, her soft, sweet scent filling my nose. Yeah, her neck is mine. Among other things. “Good morning,” I said, not wanting to stir her from her paper reading. But very much wanting to also. She turned around. “Oh, there you are,” she said with a sense of familiarity that made my nerves tingle. “Good morning back.” God, all she had to do was smile and I swear I would have done anything she asked. Including commit serious crimes. “Is this your first meeting?” “No, I came to the meeting on Tuesday also.” “Oh, nice.” She lowered her head and her voice, “They are so much fun!” This time I smiled. Sarcasm almost always made me smile. “Why are you sitting back there?” she asked. “You’re dumb. Sit next to me.” She patted the chair to her right and I went straight for it, like a dog being called to the side of its owner. There hadn’t even been a second thought, just an immediate response. Surely, anyone paying attention would have thought I was pathetic. The meeting better start soon or I can’t be held responsible for what I do next . “What are your thoughts on James Joyce?” she asked as more teachers shuffled in. Her question caught my lily-obsessed mind off-guard. “Uh...” “You’ve read him, yes?” I could read the look on her face as she read the look on mine. I had never read him, and she could clearly read that on my face. “Oh my god,” she said under her breath. I couldn’t tell whether she was mortified or repulsed. “There are plenty of authors, April. I haven’t had a chance to get to them all!” I said, feebly trying to defend myself. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “No. That doesn’t fly with me.” My mind was trying to race through a list of authors I had read, ones I thought maybe she hadn’t. “Well, what about Michener? Have you read him?” I asked.

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

  But suddenly a heavy hand seemed to be laid upon my lap, something was hent and clasped and grasped, which made me faint with lust. The hand was moved up and down, slowly at first, then fast and faster it went in rhythm with the song. My brain began to reel as throughout every vein a burning lava coursed, and then, some drops even gushed out —— I panted —— "All at once the pianist finished his piece with a crash amidst the thundering applause of the whole theatre. I myself heard nothing but the din of thunder, I saw a fiery hail, a rain of rubies and emeralds that was consuming the cities of the plain, and he, the pianist, standing naked in the lurid light, exposing himself to the thunderbolts of heaven and to the flames of hell. As he stood there, I saw him—in my madness—change all at once into Anubis, the dog-headed God of Egypt, then by degrees into a loathsome poodle. I started, I shivered, felt sick, but speedily he changed to his own form again. "I was powerless to applaud, I sat there dumb, motionless, nerveless, exhausted. My eyes were fixed upon the artist who stood there bowing listlessly, scornfully; while his own glances full of 'eager and impassioned tenderness,' seemed to be seeking mine and mine alone. What a feeling of exultation awakened within me! But could he love me, and me only? For a trice the exultation gave way to bitter jealousy. Was I growing mad, I asked myself? "As I looked at him, his features seemed to be overshadowed by a deep melancholy, and—horrible to behold—I saw a small dagger plunged in his breast, with the blood flowing fast from the wound. I not only shuddered, but almost shrieked with fear, the vision was so real. My head was spinning round, I was growing faint and sick, I fell back exhausted in my chair, covering my eyes with my hands." "What a strange hallucination, I wonder what brought it about?" "It was, indeed, something more than an hallucination, as you will see hereafter. When I lifted up my head again, the pianist was gone. I then turned round, and my mother—seeing how pale I was—asked me if I felt ill. I muttered something about the heat being very oppressive. "'Go into the green room,' said she, 'and have a glass of water.' "'No, I think I had better go home.' "I felt, in fact, that I could not listen to any more music that evening. My nerves were so utterly unstrung that a maudlin song would just then have exasperated me, whilst another intoxicating melody might have made me lose my senses.

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

  "'Who will have the goodness to moisten and lubricate the edges a little?' "Many seemed anxious to give themselves that pleasure, but it was allotted to one who had modestly introduced himself as a maître de langues , 'although with my proficiency'—he added—'I might well call myself professor in the noble art.' He was indeed a man who bore the weight of a great name, not only of old lineage—never sullied by any plebeian blood—but also famous in war, statemanship, in literature and in science. He went on his knees before that mass of flesh, usually called an arse, pointed his tongue like a lance-head, and darted it in the hole as far as it could go, then, flattening it out like a spatula, he began spreading the spittle all around most dexterously. "'Now,' said he, with the pride of an artist who has just finished his work, 'my task is done.' "Another person had taken the bottle, and had rubbed it over with the grease of a pâte de foie gras , then he began to press it in. At first it did not seem to be able to enter; but the Spahi, stretching the edges with his fingers, and the operator turning and manipulating the bottle, and pressing it slowly and steadily, it at last began to slide in. "'Aie, aie!' said the Spahi, biting his lips; 'it is a tight fit, but it's in at last.' "'Am I hurting you?' "'It did pain a little, but now it's all over;' and he began to groan with pleasure. "All the wrinkles and swellings had disappeared, and the flesh of the edges was now clasping the bottle tightly. "The Spahi's face expressed a mixture of acute pain and intense lechery; all the nerves of his body seemed stretched and quivering, as if under,the action of a strong battery; his eyes were half closed, and the pupils had almost disappeared, his clenched teeth were gnashed, as the bottle was, every now and then, thrust a little further in. His phallus, which had been limp and lifeless when he had felt nothing but pain, was again acquiring its full proportions; then all the veins in it began to swell, the nerves to stiffen themselves to their utmost. "'Do you want to be kissed?' asked someone, seeing how the rod was shaking. "'Thanks,' said he, 'I feel enough as it is.' "'What is it like?' "'A sharp and yet an agreeable irritation from my bum up to my brain.' "In fact his whole body was convulsed, as the bottle went slowly in and out, ripping and almost quartering him. All at once the penis was mightily shaken, then it became turgidly rigid, the tiny lips opened themselves, a sparkling drop of colourless liquid appeared on their edges. "'Quicker—further in—let me feel—let me feel!'

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

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

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

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