Desire

Passages

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

Page 242 of 344 · 20 per page

• From Cleanness (2020)

  At first I couldn’t understand what he was doing, he was moving his head back and forth just slightly, and then I realized he was trying to flip back the flap covering the zipper of my jeans. Once he had managed this, folding the fabric back with his nose, he rubbed his face against the metal, up and down, as if he were trying to undo it that way, all the while with his hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t trying to undo it, of course, this was part of his performance, but he was rubbing hard and fast enough that I thought it must be something else, too, a desire for pain, or if not pain then sensation of a particular sort, a kind of intensity. Take it out, I said finally. He looked up at me, smiling, and then brought his hands to my belt, slowly now, the urgency gone, and pulled the leather strap free of its buckle. He surprised me by removing the belt altogether, taking a moment to coil it around his hand before setting it ceremoniously beside him. There was something ceremonious about all of his movements, if they had been animal before they were exaggeratedly refined now, careful and precise. He pulled my jeans down, waiting for me to step out of them before he folded them and placed them beside the belt and the shoes I had kicked off. Only then did he bring his hands back to my waist and pull my underwear down, stretching the elastic to let my cock spring out, bobbing in the air as I lifted first one foot and then the other to let him pull the fabric free. He took my underwear in both his hands, spreading it across his open palms, and then buried his face in it, taking famished breaths, wanting whatever chemical traces I had left there, some mix of sweat and urine, of detergent and soap. His hands were covering his eyes but I almost rolled my own back in sympathy, I had felt the rush of it many times, that scent, but I had never watched someone else be overcome by it, I had never before been the cause of it. He folded them carefully and settled back on his knees before me.

• From Cleanness (2020)

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

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I obeyed it, the order he had spoken not to me but to the air, I forced myself upon him with a violence greater than his own, wanting to please him, I suppose, but that isn’t true; I wanted to satisfy myself more than him, or rather to assuage that force or compulsion that drew me to him, that force that can make me such a stranger to myself, it is a failing to be so prone to it but I am prone to it. He let me do this for a while, setting my own pace, and then there came the shift in his balance that meant he was reaching to the table beside him again, choosing some new object. He struck me with it a moment later, not very hard but hard enough that I jerked, interrupting the rhythm I had set, and he placed his hand on my head again, taking hold of me as if I might bolt. It was another prop of the sort I had always laughed at before, a cat-o’-nine-tails, a kind of short whip with several strips of leather hanging down; the one time it had been used on me before, the man had been timid and I had felt nothing at all, except to despise him a little because he used it only for show. This was something else, and though I had jerked more from shock than from pain there was pain too, less in the actual blow than in the moment after, a sharp heat spreading along my back. He said a word I didn’t understand then, which from his tone I took as something like steady, the kind of mixed reassurance and admonishment one might give a startled horse, and his grip on my head softened, he flexed his fingers again in that gesture that was almost a caress. I was surprised at what I felt then, which was outsized and overwhelming, gratitude at what seemed like kindness from this man who had been so stern; it was something I hadn’t felt before, or not for a very long time. I began moving again, having frozen at the shock of the first blow, brought back by his caress or perhaps there had been a very slight pressure from his hand, I’m not sure.

• From Cleanness (2020)

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

• From Cleanness (2020)

  And so I took his head in my hands and started fucking his face, pulling him toward me and lifting my hips, taking all his art from him, all or nearly all. When you’re being used like that you become an object, which is the pleasure of it, your only role is to be the best object you can be, to keep your lips wrapped around your teeth, to curl your tongue to make the right aperture, now tighter and now more ample; you have to become a hole, which was what he had said he wanted. I went easy at first, since most men say they want it but they don’t really, they gag or choke and they’ve had enough; it’s another fantasy of themselves, what they think they want they don’t actually want. But he was different, he took it without complaint, and so I fucked him harder, I gripped him more tightly and bent his neck this way and that, trying different angles. Finally he did gag, for the first time, not just in his throat but deep in his abdomen, and I let him go. But he didn’t want to be let go, he grabbed my knees with both of his hands and locked them around his head, not letting me pull away. Something came over me again, that intensity or aggression I had felt earlier, a kind of cruelty, and I said Take it then, almost spitting the words, gripping the back of his head and fucking it hard, in short savage thrusts as he gagged, take it, and then I held it in place, pulling him against me as his body jerked, and I took pleasure in his suffering, in his willingness to suffer. It was the pleasure of being a man, I think, I’m not sure I had ever felt it before. I luxuriated in it, I didn’t want to let him go, I held him even after he motioned for me to stop, I let go only when he started slapping at my thighs. He took great gulps of air, hanging his head above my cock, threads of saliva still connecting us, viscous and heavy, until he used one hand to wipe his face. So good, he said then, his voice thick, so fucking good, and he smiled at me before he started sucking me again. I dropped my head back on the pillow, letting him work.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He let go of my hair then, freeing his hand to move down the side of my face, almost stroking it before he cupped it in his palm. It was a tender gesture, and his voice was tender too as he said Kuchko, addressing me as if solicitously and tilting my head so that we gazed at each other face to face; his fingers flexed against my cheek, almost in a caress. I leaned my head into him, resting it on his palm as he spoke again in that tone of tenderness or solicitude, Tell me, kuchko, tell me what you want. And I did tell him, at first slowly and with the usual words, reciting the script that both does and does not express my desires; and then I spoke more quickly and more searchingly, drawn forward by the tone of his voice, what seemed like tenderness although it was not tenderness, until I found myself suddenly in some recess or depth where I had never been. There were things I could say in his language, because I spoke it poorly, without self-consciousness or shame, as if there were something in me unreachable in my own language, something I could reach only with that blunter instrument by which I too was made a blunter instrument, and I found myself at last at the end of my strange litany saying again and again I want to be nothing, I want to be nothing. Good, the man said, good, speaking with the same tenderness and smiling a little as he cupped my face in his palm and bent forward, bringing his own face to mine, as if to kiss me, I thought, which surprised me though I would have welcomed it. Good, he said a third time, his hand letting go of my cheek and taking hold of my hair again, forcing my neck farther back, and then suddenly and with great force he spat into my face.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Good, he said again, whispering with his forehead still pressed to my temple, as I lay there recovering, though the worst thing about that particular pain is that you recover so slowly; the pain welled instead of ebbing, settling in my groin and the pit of my stomach and the backs of my thighs. When his weight shifted next to me I almost protested, I almost said chakaite, wait, I had even taken the breath to say it. But he hushed me, making a soothing sound to keep me in my place as he shifted his frame over mine, sliding himself over until he was resting on top of me. It helped, the weight of him, it pressed me down and pressed down the pain I still felt, that ache about which there is nothing erotic, or not for me. I know there are men who like it, who go to great lengths to find others who will hurt them in exactly this way, though I’ve never been able to fathom the pleasure they take from it. But then there’s no fathoming pleasure, the forms it takes or their sources, nothing we can imagine is beyond it; however far beyond the pale of our own desires, for someone it is the intensest desire, the key to the latch of the self, or the promised key, a key that perhaps never turns. It’s what I love most about the websites I visit, that you can call out for anything you desire, however aberrant or unlikely, and nearly always there comes an answer; it’s a large world, we’re never as solitary as we think, as unique or unprecedented, what we feel has always already been felt, again and again, without beginning or end.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  The door was a thick metal slab, meant for security, though it wasn’t locked, wasn’t even latched; he opened it by gripping it with both hands and pulling hard as it dragged. He left it open behind us; he would tell me later that the old women in the building couldn’t open it on their own, if it was closed they would call out or rap on windows for someone to let them in. On my window, he complained, since his was the second apartment in the long hallway on the ground floor I followed him into, it’s fucking annoying. His own space was more effectively guarded by the series of locks he undid, and by the bars that latticed the narrow window, which I glimpsed before he drew a curtain across it. We stood in the larger of two rooms, which had a TV and, facing it, a couch, between them a low table with an open laptop, an overflowing ashtray; the second room was to the right, with a narrow bed visible through the open door. There was another bed, or kind of bed, behind me, against the wall by the front door, a thin pallet laid over a long wooden chest or cupboard of some kind, an improvised frame. It was unmade, the sheets balled up at one end. This was where he slept; the apartment was his sister’s, he didn’t really live there. He was just visiting Sofia, though he had stayed for a long time, he said, and had no plans to leave. I didn’t know whether I should sit or lie on this bed, I stood waiting for a signal. He looked at me, hesitating, and then stepped forward. Neither of us spoke. I watched him, unsure how to begin, though I knew I should be the first to act. He smiled a little, as if he saw my uncertainty and forgave it, forgave it or mocked it, I’m not sure which. I knew the kind of disdain I had felt for men who weren’t sure what they wanted, you could sense it from the first moment, the first tepid move; I had despised them sometimes for offering less than they had promised. He raised his hand and placed it on my chest, a tender gesture, and then he leaned toward me to kiss me.

• From Cleanness (2020)

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

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Once he had auditioned to do porn, or not auditioned exactly, there had been a call on one of the websites he used and he had sent his photos to a company in Germany, but they didn’t want me, he said, they didn’t even send me a response. Can you believe it, I would have been amazing, they wouldn’t even have to pay me, I would have been a star. Maybe it was to shock him out of his fantasy that when he moved forward to take me in his mouth I stopped him, catching his forehead in my palm. He objected, he made a little grunt, half protest and half question, bending his head back to look up at me. I grabbed his chin in my other hand and spread the hinge of his jaw wide. He let me do this, he looked up at me until, realizing what I intended, he shut his eyes and I spat hard into his mouth. He made another noise, this time of pleasure, and when I let him go he dove onto me, in a single movement taking my whole cock in his mouth, almost to the base, and again I nearly flinched, I bent myself just slightly around him and grabbed his head, not to force him down but just to hold him still, the sensation was too much. But the sensation didn’t stop, I held his head in place but his tongue kept moving, he swallowed repeatedly so that it moved up and down, muscular and snakelike, and I found myself making a noise I hadn’t intended to make, not just a noise but a word, I don’t remember what it was, some expletive, shit or fuck, low and drawn out, a word that can mean anything and that meant here that it was wonderful, what he was doing, and it became more wonderful when I let his head go. Everybody thinks they’re good at sucking dick but they’re not, usually, they don’t cover their teeth or they make the same single motion again and again or they can’t take it deep enough or there’s something half-hearted about it, even guys who claim they love to suck, who pride themselves on it. But he was different, he was the best I had ever had, and I gave myself over to it, over to him, I forgot the role I was supposed to play and let him do whatever he wanted. I thought suddenly of a girl I knew when I was a kid, a very large girl who was my friend, unpopular except that she was famous for being easy, for letting anybody who wanted to have a go. I hadn’t thought of her for years.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He looked up at me, smiling, and then brought his hands to my belt, slowly now, the urgency gone, and pulled the leather strap free of its buckle. He surprised me by removing the belt altogether, taking a moment to coil it around his hand before setting it ceremoniously beside him. There was something ceremonious about all of his movements, if they had been animal before they were exaggeratedly refined now, careful and precise. He pulled my jeans down, waiting for me to step out of them before he folded them and placed them beside the belt and the shoes I had kicked off. Only then did he bring his hands back to my waist and pull my underwear down, stretching the elastic to let my cock spring out, bobbing in the air as I lifted first one foot and then the other to let him pull the fabric free. He took my underwear in both his hands, spreading it across his open palms, and then buried his face in it, taking famished breaths, wanting whatever chemical traces I had left there, some mix of sweat and urine, of detergent and soap. His hands were covering his eyes but I almost rolled my own back in sympathy, I had felt the rush of it many times, that scent, but I had never watched someone else be overcome by it, I had never before been the cause of it. He folded them carefully and settled back on his knees before me. He linked his hands behind his back again but almost immediately reached up to cup my balls in one hand, the first time he had actually touched me, my bare skin; I drew my breath in through my teeth at the shock, which was neither pleasure nor pain, but sensation, pure and unmarked. With his other hand he gripped the shaft and moved it to the right and left, up and down, not erotically, but as if examining it, I thought, like a physician; and maybe he was examining it, in part, looking for signs of disease though he claimed not to care about disease, I don’t know. My first American cock, he said then, looking up at me and smiling, my first cut cock; his English was remarkable, he spoke flawlessly the language of hook-up sites and porn. He gripped more tightly as he pulled up the shaft, milking me, and at the tip there appeared a small drop, opalescent, almost clear.

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

  It’s not by co-opting aggression but rather by owning it that sexual tension can freely romp—and can itself bring safety. Everyone Needs a Secret Garden In her landmark book The Second Sex , Simone de Beauvoir writes, “Eroticism is a movement toward the Other, this is its essential character.” Yet in our efforts to establish intimacy we often seek to eliminate otherness, thereby precluding the space necessary for desire to flourish. We seek intimacy to protect ourselves from feel ing alone; and yet creating the distance essential to eroticism means stepping back from the comfort of our partner and feeling more alone. I suggest that our ability to tolerate our separateness—and the fundamental insecurity it engenders—is a precondition for maintaining interest and desire in a relationship. Instead of always striving for closeness, I argue that couples may be better off cultivating their separate selves. If cultivating separateness sounds harsh, let’s think of it instead as nurturing a sense of selfhood. The French psychologist Jacques Salomé talks about the need to develop a personal intimacy with one’s own self as a counterbalance to the couple. There is beauty in an image that highlights a connection to oneself, rather than a distance from one’s partner. In our mutual intimacy we make love, we have children, and we share physical space and interests. Indeed, we blend the essential parts of our lives. But “essential” does not mean “all.” Personal intimacy demarcates a private zone, one that requires tolerance and respect. It is a space—physical, emotional, and intellectual—that belongs only to me. Not everything needs to be revealed. Everyone should cultivate a secret garden. Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned with where it has already been than passionate about where it can still go. But too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  And then he dropped to his knees. I let go of him once I felt him begin to fall, I stayed upright, my hands at my sides. He had fallen hard, even with the rug we stood on it must have hurt. He leaned forward slightly, he bowed until his forehead almost touched me, he kept just the slightest space between us. I looked down at the crown of his head, the neatly cut hair spiraling out counterclockwise from the center, and I saw that without being told he had clasped his hands behind his back. Again I wondered where he had learned it, whether someone had taught him these gestures and codes, whether he had learned them himself online. I wondered if they made a coherent pattern, a kind of life, consistent, something like virtue, really, or were just a sort of ornament, a dream to be dipped into from time to time. But I didn’t wonder this long; I was hard, I wanted more, and so I leaned forward just slightly, little more than a breath, letting my crotch brush his forehead. Immediately he lifted his face, he pressed his nose into me, breathing in hard, smelling me, and then he started rubbing his face against me, against my balls and then along the shaft of my cock where it was trapped by my jeans, rubbing first his forehead and then the side of his face and then his mouth and nose, up again to his eyes and forehead, making a circular movement that brought his whole face in contact with me. I had done this too, many times, it was a kind of animal instinct, the pleasure not of marking one’s territory but of being marked; it was the pleasure of belonging to someone, I suppose, the pleasure of knowing one’s place. On his face was a look of need and provocation, begging me for something or daring me, both, I think, he was leading me where he wanted. I stood and watched him, enjoying not giving him what he wanted, though that isn’t quite true, the not-giving was part of what he wanted; and part of what I wanted was this, to see him desire or perform desire, more intensely now as he started rooting into me, almost making me flinch.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He held my gaze without speaking, and I knew that if he gave any sign I would do whatever he wanted, or rather whatever he would let me do, I would go into one of the stalls with him or leave the club, walk out without a word to N., I didn’t care, whatever he wanted I would do. He closed his eyes and swayed slightly before opening them again. Then he leaned toward me, crossing into my space, and said I’m really drunk, nearly shouting it, the music was loud in the bathroom, too. He leaned away again. Let’s listen to the concert and then go home, he said and turned, walking to the sink to run water over his hands before going back into the club. I didn’t follow right away, I stayed at the urinal, waiting for my excitement to settle, until the door opened and another man walked in, a fat man in an expensive suit, who stationed himself at a urinal beside me and with a sigh began to piss. N. and Z. were standing at the table, not dancing anymore, with full glasses in front of them, and as I joined them Z. refilled my glass, too. He was smiling, there wasn’t any sign of what had happened as we knocked glasses, holding each other’s eyes to say Nazdrave , I looked for some special message from him but there was none. While we were drinking, the music abruptly tapered and cut off, leaving a kind of roaring in its wake. And then over the speakers a man’s voice, loud and deep, theatrical, said Dami i gospoda , ladies and gentlemen, and in a burst of quick syllables I couldn’t quite follow announced Andrea, the singer we had come to see. With a single beat on a drum the lights snapped out, and with another drumbeat a stage I hadn’t noticed was suddenly bathed in white light. It was against the opposite wall, on the other side of the bar, though we could see just fine, it wasn’t as large a space as I had thought.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Z. was still there, I saw with relief, I wasn’t too late, and I stepped up beside him, breaking that distributive propriety of men’s bathrooms, a guard against unchecked glances, against desire. He looked over and saw it was me and smiled, a little blurrily, I thought, he was drunker than I was, or drunker than I felt, and then he faced forward again. I didn’t face forward, though I could have, I could still have seen what I wanted to see. I let my eyes track down his front, following the line of buttons down his shirt, which was ridiculous in the fluorescent light, a kind of garish violet. Even in my excitement I admired the neatness of it, the buttons perfectly aligned, and I thought for the first time in many years of my father dressing me as a boy, teaching me about this line, the gig line, he called it, buttons and buckle forming an order that was more than vanity, that signaled some deeper righteousness. The memory came in a flash before I let myself look at his cock, pale in his hand and pissing a pale line against the porcelain, nothing extraordinary, not small or particularly large, a handsome cock, and I felt my own stiffen a little when I saw that with his index finger he was rubbing just slightly the underside of the head, where he held the foreskin back, an unconscious gesture, probably, though it must have sent a small current of pleasure alongside the pleasure of pissing. I knew I was acting badly, that I was looking too brazenly and for too long, that I shouldn’t have looked at all. I would be ashamed later but I wasn’t ashamed now, I kept watching as the stream weakened and became intermittent, let him know, I said to myself, he already knows, let him see it. He let go of the head to pull the foreskin all the way back and shake himself before he pinched the base and drew his fingers up the shaft, stretching himself out to his full length and flicking off the drop of urine that hung at the tip. He did this two or three times and then stopped, leaving his cock dangling for a moment, in which I felt my excitement mount and become unbearable, he must be letting me look, I thought, it might be a kind of invitation, before he tucked himself away and drew up his fly. Only then did I look up at his face. Our eyes met: he had been watching me or maybe he had only looked over at that instant, I don’t know.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It isn’t easy to find men who will say that, the idea of it frightens them or turns them off; when finally I found someone to say it to me there was excitement but also gratitude and relief, maybe he was feeling that. Even in his hoodie it was clear how slim he was, he kept his hands in the pockets at the front and pulled the fabric tight around him, showing off his frame, and he wore tight jeans that advertised his legs and ass, which I found myself watching as we walked. It was the only condition I had set, that I didn’t want to come in his ass; I want to shoot in your mouth, I had said, in your mouth and on your face. Really I wasn’t sure I wanted to fuck him at all, I worried about disease, and the longer I fucked him the more danger there would be. Danger for him, too; I got tested every six months but I wasn’t always careful, I wasn’t fanatically safe. On his profile he had chosen the third option, not negative or positive but don’t know, and in the text he had said he didn’t care about status, anyone was welcome, he didn’t want to know. People always lie, he would say to me later, why bother to ask, why should I believe them, why should I care. His apartment was on the ground floor of a poorly maintained building, ten or twelve stories of discolored concrete, the façade run through with cracks. The door was a thick metal slab, meant for security, though it wasn’t locked, wasn’t even latched; he opened it by gripping it with both hands and pulling hard as it dragged. He left it open behind us; he would tell me later that the old women in the building couldn’t open it on their own, if it was closed they would call out or rap on windows for someone to let them in. On my window, he complained, since his was the second apartment in the long hallway on the ground floor I followed him into, it’s fucking annoying. His own space was more effectively guarded by the series of locks he undid, and by the bars that latticed the narrow window, which I glimpsed before he drew a curtain across it. We stood in the larger of two rooms, which had a TV and, facing it, a couch, between them a low table with an open laptop, an overflowing ashtray; the second room was to the right, with a narrow bed visible through the open door. There was another bed, or kind of bed, behind me, against the wall by the front door, a thin pallet laid over a long wooden chest or cupboard of some kind, an improvised frame. It was unmade, the sheets balled up at one end. This was where he slept; the apartment was his sister’s, he didn’t really live there.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was a chain, I realized as I felt it cold against my neck, or rather the kind of leash you use with difficult dogs, and immediately he pulled it tight, letting me feel the pinch of it. This didn’t excite me, it was part of the pageantry I was indifferent to, but I didn’t object; I assented, though he hadn’t sought my permission or consent. And then he took another chain, this one shorter and finer, with little toothed clamps at each end, which (using both his hands, letting the leash fall free, since after all I wasn’t an animal, I didn’t need to be bound) he attached to my chest. It was the first real pain he had caused me, it made me suck in my breath, but it wasn’t too much pain, and not unexciting; a thrill ran through me at this, too, and at what it promised. Dobre , he said when he had finished, good, though he was speaking of his own work now and not of me. He took up the larger chain again and pulled it tight, twisting his wrist to gather up the slack, which he wrapped around his curled fingers until they were nearly flush against my neck. He was putting me on a short leash, I thought, though I was thinking more of his cock, which I was eager for now, perhaps because of the pain at my chest, which was more than pain, which was excitement too, as was the tightness of the chain around my neck, in which I felt the strength of his arm keeping me from what I wanted. Whatever chemical change desire is had taken hold and I was lit up with it, so that after all I did strain against the leash, he had been right to make it so short. It was a kind of disobedience but a kind he would like, and even as he tightened his grip on the chain I heard him laugh or almost laugh, a slow satisfied chuckle. It was a sound of approval and I glowed with it. She wants something, he said, still chuckling, and he lifted his foot to my crotch, feeling my erection as I knelt before him, she likes it, and then he used his foot to pull my cock down, letting it go so that it snapped back up, making me flinch. Then his foot moved lower and he placed his toes beneath my balls, which he fondled roughly, flexing his ankle until there was not quite pain but an intimation of pain.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Then she laughed again, pointing, and I saw that ahead of us a group of women were dancing on the sidewalk, their hair wet, their sundresses clinging to their bodies, and several stories above them an elderly man, shirtless and bald, his skin hanging loose around his frame, held a garden hose, pointing it up and half blocking the end with his thumb so that water fell down like rain. It was his gift to us, a chance to cool down, though most of the marchers avoided it, leaving it to the young women, who would be cold soon enough; the heat was fading, even on warm days the nights could be cool. It was an instant allegory, youth and age, Hephaestus and the Graces. And then my mind shuffled to the side a step and I thought of the water cannons in Taksim Square, of the luck that had held here so far. M. turned her head as we passed them, then looked back at me, smiling. My parents don’t like that I come, she said, they don’t like the government but they’re afraid of violence, they’re afraid I’ll get in trouble with the police. But it’s not like that at all, she said, people aren’t angry, there’s so much joy here, she said, they don’t understand that, have you ever seen so much joy? It makes me wish I weren’t leaving, she went on, my whole life I’ve been dying to get out of here and now I feel like I want to stay. This made me remember the taxi driver and what he had said about the Changes, how he had wasted his life for an idealism that had curdled, but I didn’t say this, I put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder, another breach of decorum. I mean, look at that, she said after I dropped my arm, and she pointed at a sign being carried by a man just in front of us. The crowd had bunched and slowed as people climbed the stairs that led from the boulevard up to the plaza at NDK. I almost never came to NDK this way, I always circled around to the other side.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I took off my shoes and walked up to N., our erstwhile guide, who was smoking a cigarette, standing well away from the surf where the others were wading, letting the waves brush their ankles and calves, shouting and laughing. Hi, he said, smiling at me, speaking in English though my Bulgarian was better, it is beautiful here, no? And I said it was, very much so, prekrasno . He asked me about the morning’s workshop, and I told him it was fine, that they were interesting writers, I liked them very much. And how was the Bulgarian group, I asked, and he turned to me, smiling widely, and said Today we talked about the G-spot of the story, how it is like with a woman, it is difficult to make the story come. Ah, I said, taken aback, I see. And then, after a pause, But I don’t understand, I said, why should the story be a woman? It was a fair question, I thought, but he looked at me with blank incomprehension, even though I had spoken in his language. Couldn’t it be a man, I asked, would it change anything, and I thought he was going to say something in response, but then our attention was claimed by a commotion farther down the beach. What’s that, I said as we started walking toward the others, who had gathered in a circle, what’s going on, and then, as we heard whistles and catcalls and voices chanting strip, strip, N. told me that the priest had said he wanted to swim. We could see him now, already bare-chested, his bearded face bright in the light of cell phone cameras brought out of pockets. Immediately, catching sight of him, I felt myself in that strange state of vibrancy and stasis, like a flame submerged in glass, sealed off as always when I feel desire I shouldn’t feel. Not that he was so desirable: he was thin and pale, with a silver cross glinting on his chest. His hand drifted to his jeans and he paused, letting the encouragement rise, looking around the circle until he found D., eager as the rest, hooting and calling Take it off, and with a look that seemed to dedicate the act to her, the whole evening, the night and the sea, he undid the buttons of his fly and stripped. There was an eruption of cheers, and he began playing to the crowd, lifting his arms and flexing, smiling at the flashing lights; he was entirely one with them now, I thought, all his sanctity was gone. He wasn’t naked, he was still wearing a pair of tight black briefs, and I was surprised to see they were a designer brand, sleek and European, not at all what I would have expected.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He held my gaze without speaking, and I knew that if he gave any sign I would do whatever he wanted, or rather whatever he would let me do, I would go into one of the stalls with him or leave the club, walk out without a word to N., I didn’t care, whatever he wanted I would do. He closed his eyes and swayed slightly before opening them again. Then he leaned toward me, crossing into my space, and said I’m really drunk, nearly shouting it, the music was loud in the bathroom, too. He leaned away again. Let’s listen to the concert and then go home, he said and turned, walking to the sink to run water over his hands before going back into the club. I didn’t follow right away, I stayed at the urinal, waiting for my excitement to settle, until the door opened and another man walked in, a fat man in an expensive suit, who stationed himself at a urinal beside me and with a sigh began to piss. N. and Z. were standing at the table, not dancing anymore, with full glasses in front of them, and as I joined them Z. refilled my glass, too. He was smiling, there wasn’t any sign of what had happened as we knocked glasses, holding each other’s eyes to say Nazdrave , I looked for some special message from him but there was none. While we were drinking, the music abruptly tapered and cut off, leaving a kind of roaring in its wake. And then over the speakers a man’s voice, loud and deep, theatrical, said Dami i gospoda , ladies and gentlemen, and in a burst of quick syllables I couldn’t quite follow announced Andrea, the singer we had come to see. With a single beat on a drum the lights snapped out, and with another drumbeat a stage I hadn’t noticed was suddenly bathed in white light. It was against the opposite wall, on the other side of the bar, though we could see just fine, it wasn’t as large a space as I had thought.