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 274 of 344 · 20 per page

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  Mathilde laughed as she remembered the young Peruvian sailor who had told her this story, how he had described lying over her as if she were an air mattress, and how she made him bounce off her sometimes by sheer resilience. Mathilde felt exactly like this rubber woman when she took opium. How pleasurable was the feeling of utter abandon! Her only occupation was to count the money that her friends left her. One of them, Antonio, did not seem content with the luxury of her room. He was always begging her to visit him. He was a prizefighter and looked like the man who knows how to make women work for his living. He had at once the necessary elegance to make women proud of him, a groomed air of the man of leisure and a suave manner that, one felt, could turn to violence at the necessary moment. And in his eyes he had the look of the cat who inspires a desire to caress but loves no one, who never feels he must respond to the impulses he arouses. He had a mistress who matched him well, who was equal to his strength and vigor, able to take blows lustily; a woman who wore her femaleness with honor and who did not demand pity from men; a real woman who knew that a vigorous fight was a marvelous stimulant to the blood (pity only dilutes the blood) and that the best reconciliations could come only after combat. She knew that when Antonio was not with her he was at the Frenchwoman’s taking opium, but she did not mind that as much as not knowing where he was at all. Today he had just finished brushing his mustache with satisfaction and was preparing himself for an opium feast. To placate his mistress he started to pinch and pat her buttocks. She was an unusual-looking woman with some African blood in her. Her breasts were higher than any woman’s he had ever seen, placed almost parallel with the shoulder line, and they were absolutely round and big. It was these breasts which had first attracted him. Their being placed so provocatively, so near the mouth, pointing upwards, somehow awakened in him a direct response. It was as if his sex had a peculiar affinity with these breasts, and as soon as they showed themselves in the whorehouse where he had found her, his sex raised itself to challenge them on equal terms. Every time he had gone into the whorehouse, he experienced the same condition. He finally took the woman out of the house and lived with her. At first he could only make love to her breasts. They haunted him, obsessed him. When he inserted his penis into her mouth they seemed to be pointing hungrily towards it, and would rest it between her breasts, holding them against the penis with his hands. The nipples were large and would harden like a fruit pit in his mouth.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I pulled the sheet to my throat and lay quite still; neither the mistress nor the maid, however, appeared in any way discomfited by my presence there. The latter - not the pale-faced woman I had seen the night before, but a girl a little younger than myself - gave a bob and, with her eyes lowered, made space for a tray on the dressing-table. When she had finished with the china she paused with her head bent and her hands folded over her apron. ‘Very good, Blake, that will be all for now,’ said the lady. ‘But have a bath ready for Miss King by half-past twelve. And tell Mrs Hooper I shall speak to her about luncheon, later.’ Her tone was quite polite, yet colourless; I had heard ladies and gentlemen use that tone on cabmen and shopgirls and porters a thousand times. The girl gave another little duck to her head - ‘Yes m’m’ - and withdrew. She had not looked towards the bed, at all. With the breakfast things to busy ourselves over, the next few minutes passed easily. I raised myself into a sitting position - wincing all the time, for my body ached as if it had been pummelled, or stretched on a rack - and the lady fed me coffee, and warm rolls spread with butter and honey. She herself only drank and, later, smoked. She seemed to take pleasure from seeing me eat - as last night she had liked to watch me stand, undress, light cigarettes; but, still, there was that disconcerting thoughtfulness about her, that made me long for her honest, cruel kisses of the night before. When we had drained the coffee-pot between us, and I had finished all the rolls, she spoke; and her voice was graver than I had yet heard it. She said: ‘Last night, upon the street, I invited you to drive with me and you hesitated. Why was that?’ ‘I was afraid,’ I answered honestly. She nodded. ‘You are not afraid now?’ ‘No.’ ‘You are glad that I brought you here.’ It was not a question, but as she said it she raised a hand to my throat, and stoked me there until I reddened and swallowed; and I could not help but answer: ‘Yes.’ Then the hand was removed. She grew thoughtful again, and smiled. She said: ‘There is a Persian story I read as a girl, about a princess and a beggar, and a djinn. The beggar sets the djinn free from a bottle, and is rewarded with a wish; but the wish - they always do, alas! - comes with conditions.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  El jueves siguiente tengo mi clase de verano, y Pike me deja usar su camioneta. Ha estado viajando con Dutch hacia y desde el trabajo toda la semana, así que tengo un vehículo confiable para andar, e incluso mencionó comprar otro auto bajo el pretexto de que debería tener algo mejor para ”salir”, pero sé que es solo su excusa para conseguirme algo mejor que el VW. Lo rechacé. Casi tiene mi auto en funcionamiento, así que me las arreglaré con él el tiempo que dure y cruzaré ese puente cuando tenga que hacerlo. Me detengo junto a la acera y estaciono la camioneta fuera del camino, viendo a Dutch y Pike trabajando en mi auto, en el camino de entrada. En realidad, Pike está trabajando en él, y Dutch está acampado en una silla de jardín cercana con una cerveza en la mano. Agarro mi mochila, camino por la calle y subo por nuestra entrada. —Hola, chicos —canto—. ¿Cómo les va? Pike me mira por encima del hombro, con los ojos recorriendo todo mi cuerpo. Reprimo mi sonrisa y él también lo hace, mientras rápidamente vuelve a trabajar bajo el capó. Me desperté con su boca bajando por mi estómago a las dos de esta mañana, terminando entre mis piernas y quedándose allí hasta que me corrí, dos veces. Y luego no volvimos a dormir hasta las cuatro. El hombre tiene más energía de la que puedo tomar, y hoy estoy tan cansada, pero de la mejor manera posible. Cada centímetro de mi cuerpo está siendo bien utilizado, y es difícil concentrarse en cualquier otra cosa excepto la necesidad de estar con él cuando no estoy a su lado. No quiero enamorarme de él. Quiero decir, quiero, pero no hasta que sepa exactamente lo que está sucediendo aquí. Cam podría tener razón y esto es solo una aventura. —Estamos bien, cariño —responde Dutch, su lata de cerveza descansa sobre su rodilla—. Casi está listo para salir de aquí. Paso por delante del auto y veo a Pike apretando o soltando algo con una llave inglesa. —¿En serio? —Frunzo el ceño—. ¿Ya casi está listo?

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Pero luego se me ocurre algo, y miro alrededor del capó de nuevo. —¿Todas trabajan juntas? ¿Con Jordan? —No, trabajamos en The Hook. Dutch hace un sonido de gárgaras, y me doy cuenta que se está ahogando con su cerveza. Tose y se ríe al mismo tiempo que se aclara la garganta. Cam asiente y se burla. —Sí, ya conoces The Hook. Se ríe, y juro que lo veo sonrojarse. —Es posible que haya estado familiarizado con el lugar en algún momento. The Hook es un club de striptease en el centro, no lejos de Grounders, donde trabaja Jordan. —Jordan no trabaja allí, ¿verdad? —pregunto. Quiero decir, podría tener dos trabajos, supongo, pero si no puedo imaginarla detrás de la barra en Grounders, realmente no quiero la imagen mental de ella en The Hook. Pero afortunadamente, Cam se apresura a responder. —Oh, no, pero mi jefe sí le ofreció un trabajo de camarera —contesta—. Ha estado tratando de convencerla por un año. Sin embargo, es tímida. Dice lo último con un pequeño guiño, y no estoy seguro de lo que eso significa. ¿Tímida sobre qué? ¿Tendría que usar algo similar a las bailarinas para trabajar detrás de la barra? Sí, no. Imaginarla en The Hook, tratando con los tipos que llegan queriendo una cosa, me estresaría. ¿Sabe Cole sobre la oferta de trabajo? No me puedo imaginar que quiera que trabaje allí. Sin embargo, no tengo tiempo para pensarlo más, porque Jordan baja por el porche delantero y camina hacia su hermana por el césped. —Deja de hablar de mí —le advierte, agarrando la correa de su bolso sobre su pecho, pero Cam solo le lanza una mirada juguetona. Jordan responde poniendo los ojos en blanco, pero apenas lo noto. Mi corazón late con fuerza, mirando su atuendo. Miro hacia otro lado. Por alguna razón, el juicio que le di a Cam por su ropa no se transfiere a Jordan, a pesar que es unos años más joven. Vestida con shorts jean azul oscuro, bajos en la cadera y ajustados en el muslo, no están cortados, sino enrollados, y su holgada camiseta negra muestra su estómago y cuelga de un hombro. El cabello le cuelga por la espalda en grandes rizos sueltos, y sus ojos están bordeados por un delineador oscuro y una sombra de ojos oscuros, haciendo que el azul medianoche en sus ojos explote como una corriente de luna en un mar nocturno. Me pregunto si está usando sus Chucks, pero eso significaría pasar sus piernas, y estoy teniendo dificultades para hacerlo, así que mantengo mi mirada apartada y continúo trabajando en el auto.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  El calor llena mi coño mojado, y miro como su lengua caliente golpea el endurecido botón de mi pezón, mi clítoris palpita con tanta fuerza que no puedo respirar. Me estremezco, una explosión de placer se apodera de mí y me calienta las entrañas. Pongo lo ojos en blanco y grito. ¡Mierda! Mierda, mierda, mierda... Me estremezco, abro los ojos, un poco sorprendida. Miro hacia abajo, viendo a Pike mirándome. —¿Acabas de correrte? —pregunta, con sus ojos sorprendidos. Trago, mi boca seca de repente, y asiento. —Sí. Creo que sí. Sus cejas se disparan. —Te gusta que besen tus pechos, ¿eh? —Me gusta cuando besas cualquier parte en mí. Se levanta y me pone de pie, sosteniendo mis ojos mientras desabotona mis pantalones cortos. —Estuviste tan increíble anoche. Mis ojos se iluminan. —Entonces, estuvo bien, ¿eh? —Tal vez tengo una actriz en mí, después de todo. Pero solo levanta una ceja. —No te hagas ilusiones. No será así con nadie más. Mis pantalones cortos caen al suelo, me gira y pongo mis manos sobre la mesa para sostenerme. Escucho el crujido de un envoltorio y luego el ruido metálico de su cinturón mientras abre sus jeans. Me tiemblan los muslos, tan excitada por lo que viene. Gracias a Dios que las persianas están cerradas. Arqueando mi espalda, abro mis piernas para él y miro por encima de mi hombro. —Lamento haberte hecho eso anoche —le digo. Saca su polla de sus jeans y se pone el condón, luego se acerca, envolviendo una mano alrededor de mi cuello y me besa con fuerza. —Bueno, en realidad no lo siento, supongo —jadeo contra sus labios—. Esto hace que valga la pena. Demonios, sí. Está tan caliente en este momento. Bueno, siempre lo está, pero... Bajando mis bragas, me agarra donde mi muslo se encuentra con mi cadera y guía su polla hacia mi entrada. Una vez que me está coronando, tira de mis caderas hacia él, y soy cortada en dos, jadeando y temblando mientras su polla se desliza profundamente en mi interior. —Oh, Dios mío. —Lloriqueo, con la cabeza baja, porque estoy temblando tan fuerte. No me da tiempo para recuperarme, y todo lo que puedo hacer es aguantar mientras me abraza fuertemente y me folla. Levanto la rodilla derecha hacia la mesa y me inclino un poco más hacia adelante, su polla se desliza más profundo y me hace gemir. Jadea con fuerza, gruñendo en mi oreja, y sus manos están por todos lados mientras me rodea con sus brazos, una mano apretando mi pecho y la otra sumergiéndose entre mis piernas para frotar mi clítoris. —Puedes hacerlo de nuevo más tarde, ¿verdad? —pregunto por encima de mi hombro. —Me estás insultando —gruñe en mi oído—. ¿Crees que no puedo seguir tu ritmo? —Realmente quiero... —¿Quieres qué? Abro mi boca, susurrando contra sus labios mientras nuestros cuerpos se encuentran una y otra vez. —Quiero chuparte. —Froto mis labios sobre los suyos, burlándome de él—. Quiero sentirte en mi boca.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  At first he was shy about this, ashamed. Then, almost surreptitiously, he began to write, hiding the pages from her when she came into the room, using a worn pencil, writing as though it were a criminal confession. It was by accident that she read what he had written. He was urgently in need of money. He had pawned his typewriter, his winter coat and his watch, and there was nothing more to be pawned. He could not let Marianne take care of him. As it was, she tired her eyes out typing, worked late at night and never made more than was necessary for the rent and a very small supply of food. So he went to the collector to whom Marianne delivered manuscripts, and offered his own manuscript for sale, apologizing for its being written by hand. The collector, finding it difficult to read, innocently gave it to Marianne to be typed. So Marianne found herself with her lover’s manuscript in her hands. She read avidly before typing, unable to control her curiosity, in search of the secret of his passivity. This is what she read: “Most of the time the sexual life is a secret. Everybody conspires to make it so. Even the best of friends do not tell each other the details of their sexual lives. Here with Marianne I live in a strange atmosphere. What we talk about, read about and write about is the sexual life. “I remember an incident I had completely forgotten about. It happened when I was about fifteen and still sexually innocent. My family had taken an apartment in Paris which had many balconies, and doors giving on these balconies. In the summer I used to like to walk about my room naked. Once I was doing this when the doors were open, and then I noticed that a woman was watching me across the way. “She was sitting on her balcony watching me, completely unashamed, and something drove me to pretend that I was not noticing her at all. I feared that if she knew I was aware of her she might leave. “And being watched by her gave me the most extraordinary pleasure. I would walk about or be on my bed. She never moved. We repeated this scene every day for a week, but on the third day I had an erection. “Could she detect this from across the street, could she see? I began to touch myself, feeling all the time how attentive she was to my every gesture. I was bathed in delicious excitement. From where I lay I could see her very luxuriant form. Looking straight at her now, I played with my sex, and finally got myself so excited that I came.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  Women tended to run from him. He had to beg them to stay and resorted to all kinds of tricks. He would pose as a model and look for work in women’s studios. But the condition he got into as he stood there under the eyes of the female students made the men throw him out into the street. If he were invited to a party, he would first try to get one of the women alone somewhere in an empty room or on a balcony. Then he would take down his pants. If the woman was interested he would fall into ecstasy. If not, he would run after her, with his erection, and come back to the party and stand there, hoping to create curiosity. He was not a beautiful sight but a highly incongruous one. Since the penis did not seem to belong to the austere religious face and body, it acquired a greater prominence—as it were, an apartness. He finally found the wife of a poor literary agent who was dying of starvation and overwork, with whom he reached the following arrangement. He would come in the morning and do all her housework for her, wash her dishes, sweep her studio, run errands, on condition that when all this was over he could exhibit himself. In this case he demanded all her attention. He wanted her to watch him unfasten his belt, unbutton his pants, pull them down. He wore no underwear. He would take out his penis and shake it like a person weighing a thing of value. She had to stand near him and watch every gesture. She had to look at his penis as she would look at food she liked. This woman developed the art of satisfying him completely. She would become absorbed in the penis, saying, “It’s a beautiful penis you have there, the biggest I have seen in Montparnasse. It’s so smooth and hard. It’s beautiful.” As she said these words, Manuel continued to shake his penis like a pot of gold under her eyes, and saliva came to his mouth. He admired it himself. As they both bent over it to admire it his pleasure would become so keen that he would close his eyes and be taken with a bodily trembling from head to foot, still holding his penis and shaking it under her face. Then the trembling would turn into undulation and he would fall on the floor and roll himself into a ball as he came, sometimes all over his own face.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  She was forced to beg, “Slip it in again.” It was sweet. Then he placed it halfway in, where she could feel and yet not clutch at it, where she could not truly hold it. He acted as if he would leave it halfway there for good. She wanted to move towards it and engulf it but she restrained herself. She wanted to scream. The flesh he did not touch was burning at his nearness. At the back of the womb there lay flesh that demanded to be penetrated. It curved inwards, opened to suck. The flesh walls moved like sea anemones, seeking by suction to draw his sex in, but it was only near enough to send currents of excruciating pleasure. He moved again, watching her face. Then he saw her mouth open. She wanted to raise her body now, to take his sex in wholly, but she waited. By this slow teasing he had her on the edge of hysteria. She opened her mouth as if to reveal the openness of her womb, its hunger, and only then did he plunge to the very bottom and felt her contractions. THIS IS HOW the Basque found Bijou. One day when he arrived at the house he was met by a melted Maman who told him that Viviane was busy. Then she offered to console him, almost as if he were a deceived husband. The Basque said that he would wait. Maman continued her teasing and caresses. Then the Basque said: “May I look in?” Every room was arranged so that amateurs could watch through a secret aperture. Now and then the Basque liked to see how Viviane behaved with her visitors. So Maman took him to the partition, where she hid him behind a curtain and let him look. There were four people in the room: a foreign man and woman, dressed with discreet elegance, watching two women on the large bed. Viviane, the heavy, dark skinned one, lay sprawled on the bed. On her hands and knees over her was a magnificent woman with ivory-colored skin, green eyes and long, thick, curly hair. Her breasts pointed high, her waist tapered to extreme slenderness and spread again for a rich display of hips. She was shaped as if she had been molded in a corset. Her body had a firm, marble smoothness. There was nothing flabby or loose in her, but a hidden strength, like the strength of a puma, an extravagance and vehemence in her gestures as in those of Spanish women. This was Bijou. The two women were beautifully matched, without amorousness or sentimentality. Women of action, who both carried an ironic smile and a corrupt expression.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “It was a mutual decision.” “Don’t tell us,” Maia said, “we were here … remember?” “How could I forget?” Vix asked. “Without the two of you …” “Then listen to us now,” Maia said, “and get a job someplace else. There are notices posted everywhere.” But Vix didn’t listen. AbbySHE’S THRILLED Vix is returning to the Vineyard. She’d worried at first, after the breakup with Bru, that she’d never come back. She and Lamb know this could be the last summer they’ll have her with them. Next year she’ll graduate and who can say what will happen? She just hopes Vix won’t slip back into her romance with Bru because it’s easy, because he’s there. She knows how hard it is to break away … 33IF HER GOAL was to prove to herself that it was over, that they both wanted to end it, she got her chance two days after she settled in with Lamb and Abby, when Bru came looking for her at the Dynamo office, a cramped space on the second floor of a ratty building on Beach Road. She was alone in the office, taking inventory in the supply closet, when he called, “Hello … anybody home?” Please, God … help me live through this. Help me to be strong . “Hey,” he said, finding her as still and lifeless as one of the vacuum cleaners. He held out a bunch of peonies. She took them, her hands shaking. She was afraid to look at him, afraid if she did she’d lose it. “Hey …” he said again, tilting up her chin. She tried to focus on the wall clock over his shoulder —4:15 P.M. He waved his hand in front of her face. “Victoria?” Okay. She could do this. She’d keep it light, as if it meant nothing, as if he meant nothing. “What happened to your nose?” she asked. She could see he’d had an accident. A Band-Aid covered the bridge of his nose, but it only made him more attractive, giving his face a mysterious, slightly dangerous look. “Hockey,” he said. She nodded, reached up, touched it. A mistake. His arms went around her. “Missed you,” he whispered. “Missed you so much.” She was all over him in the truck, tugging at his shirt, undoing the zipper of his jeans. She’d never felt this kind of lust. He pulled off the road and fell onto her, pushing her panties aside, his jeans around his knees. Her head banged against the door as he pumped her but she barely noticed. The peonies crushing beneath her released their fragrance. She would never smell peonies again without reliving this moment. She had wished for a return to the feelings of that first summer—the thrill of being with him, the rush—and now her wish had come true. He said, “Wow … what have you been up to since January?” Caitlin sent a series of postcards showing stars from old movie musicals. Judy Garland. Cyd Charisse.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  Erotic images would form again. Martinez saw the body of a woman, distended, headless, a woman with the breasts of a Balinese woman, the belly of an African woman, the high buttocks of a Negress; all this confounded itself into an image of a mobile flesh, a flesh that seemed to be made of elastic. The taut breasts would swell towards his mouth, and his hand would extend towards them, but then other parts of the body would stretch, become prominent, hang over his own body. The legs would part in an inhuman, impossible way, as if they were severed from the woman, to leave the sex exposed, open, as if one had taken a tulip in the hand and opened it completely by force. This sex was also mobile, moving like rubber, as if invisible hands stretched it, curious hands that wanted to dismember the body to get at the interior of it. Then the ass would be turned fully towards him and begin to lose its shape, as if drawn apart. Every movement tended to open the body completely until it would tear. Martinez was taken with a fury because other hands were handling this body. He would half sit up and seek Mathilde’s breast, and if he found a hand on it, or a mouth suckling it, he would seek her belly, as if it were still the image that haunted his opium dream, and then fall lower upon her body so that he could kiss her between parted legs. Mathilde’s pleasure in caressing the men was so immense, and their hands passed over her body and fondled her so completely, so continuously, that she rarely had an orgasm. She would only become aware of this fact after the men had left. She awakened from her opium dreams with her body still restless. She would lie filing her nails and covering them with lacquer, doing her refined toilette for future occasions, brushing her blond hair. Sitting in the sun, using little cotton wads of peroxide, she dyed her pubic hair to match. Left to herself, memories of the hands over her body haunted her. Now she felt one under her arm, sliding down to her waist. She remembered Martinez, his way of opening the sex like a bud, the flicks of his quick tongue covering the distance from the pubic hair to the buttocks, ending on the dimple at the end of her spine. How he loved this dimple, which led his fingers and his tongue to follow the downwards curve and vanish between the two full mounts of flesh.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  When they arrived, it was scented with burning incense. The only light came from illuminated glass globes filled with water and iridescent fish, corals and glass sea horses. This gave the room an undersea aspect, the appearance of a dream, a place where three diversely beautiful women exhaled such sensual auras that a man would have been overcome. Bijou was afraid to move. Everything looked so fragile to her. She sat cross-legged like an Arab woman, smoking. Elena seemed to radiate light like the glass globes. Her eyes shone brilliant and feverish in the semidarkness. Leila emitted a mysterious charm for both women, an atmosphere of the unknown. The three of them sat on the very low couch, on a heaving sea of pillows. The first one to move was Leila, who slid her jeweled hand under Bijou’s skirts and gasped slightly with surprise at the unexpected touch of flesh where she had expected to find silky underwear. Bijou lay back and turned her mouth towards Elena, her strength tempted by the fragility of Elena, knowing for the first time what it was to feel like a man and to feel a woman’s slightness bending under the weight of a mouth, the small head bent back by her heavy hands, the light hair flying about. Bijou’s strong hands encircled the dainty neck with delight. She held the head like a cup between her hands to drink from the mouth long draughts of nectar breath, her tongue undulating. Leila had a moment of jealousy. Each caress she gave to Bijou, Bijou transmitted to Elena—the very same caress. After Leila kissed Bijou’s luxuriant mouth, Bijou took Elena’s lips between hers. When Leila’s hand slipped further under Bijou’s dress, Bijou slid her hand under Elena’s. Elena did not move, filling herself with languor. Then Leila slid to her knees and used both hands to stroke Bijou. When she pushed up Bijou’s dress, Bijou threw her body back and closed her eyes to better feel the movements of the warm, incisive hands. Elena, seeing Bijou offered, dared to touch her voluptuous body and follow every contour of the rich curves—a bed of down, soft, firm flesh without bones, smelling of sandalwood and musk. Her own nipples hardened as she touched Bijou’s breasts. When her hand passed around Bijou’s buttocks, it met Leila’s hand. Then Leila began to undress, exposing a soft little black satin corselet, which held her stockings with tiny black garters. Her thighs, slender and white, gleamed, her sex lay in shadow. Elena loosened the garters to watch the polished legs emerging. Bijou threw her dress over her head and then leaned forwards to finish pulling it off, exposing as she did so the fullness of her buttocks, the dimples at the bottom of the spine, the incurving back. Then Elena slid out of her dress. She was wearing black lace underwear that was slit open back and front, showing only the shadowy folds of her sexual secrets.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  We lay in half-darkness, surrounded by strange forms—sleighs, boots, spoons from Russia, crystals, seashells. There were erotic Chinese pictures on the walls. But everything, even a piece of lava from Krakatoa, even the bottle of sand from the Dead Sea, had a quality of erotic suggestion. “You have the right rhythm for me,” Marcel said. “Women are usually too quick for me. I get into a panic about it. They take their pleasure and then I am afraid to go on. They do not give me time to feel them, to know them, to reach them, and I go crazy after they leave thinking about their nakedness and how I have not had my pleasure. But you are slow. You are like me.” As I dressed we stood by the fireplace, talking. Marcel slipped his hand under my skirt and began caressing me again. We were suddenly blind again with desire. I stood there with my eyes closed, feeling his hand, moving upon it. He gripped my ass with his hard, peasant grip, and I thought we were going to roll down on the bed again, but instead he said: “Lift up your dress.” I leaned against the wall, moving my body up against his. He put his head between my legs, seizing my buttocks in his hands, tonguing my sex, sucking and licking until I was wet again. Then he took his penis out and took me there against the wall. His penis hard and erect like a drill, pushing, pushing, thrusting up into me while I was all wet and dissolved in his passion.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  Linda’s mouth had seduced him from the first. It had a perverse, half-dolorous expression. There was something about the way she moved it, a passionate unfolding of the lips, promising a person who would lash around the beloved like a storm. When he first saw Linda, he was taken into her through this mouth, as if he were already making love to her. And so it was on their wedding night. He was obsessed with her mouth. It was on her mouth that he threw himself, kissing it until it burned, until the tongue was worn out, until the lips were swollen; and then, when he had fully aroused her mouth, it was thus that he took her, crouching over her, his strong hips pressed against her breasts. He never treated her as a wife. He wooed her over and over again, with presents, flowers, new pleasures. He took her to dinner at the cabinets particuliers of Paris, to the big restaurants, where all the waiters thought she was his mistress. He chose the most exciting food and wine for her. He made her drunk with his caressing words. He made love to her mouth. He made her say that she wanted him. Then he would ask: “And how do you want me? What part of you wants me tonight?” Sometimes she answered, “My mouth wants you, I want to feel you in my mouth, way deep down in my mouth.” Other times she answered, “I am moist between the legs.” This is how they talked across restaurant tables, in the small private dining rooms created especially for lovers. How discreet the waiters, knowing when not to return. Music would come from an invisible source. There would be a divan. When the meal was served, and André had pressed Linda’s knees between his and stolen kisses, he would take her on the divan, with her clothes on, like lovers who do not have time to undress. He would escort her to the opera and to the theatres famed for their dark boxes, and make love to her while they watched a spectacle. He would make love to her in taxis, in a barge anchored in front of Notre Dame that rented cabins to lovers. Everywhere but at home, on the marital bed. He would drive her to little far-off villages and stay at romantic inns with her. He would take a room for them in the luxurious houses of prostitution he had known. Then he would treat her like a prostitute. He would make her submit to his whims, ask to be whipped, ask her to crawl on her hands and knees and not to kiss him but to pass her tongue all over him like an animal.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Then the hand was removed. She grew thoughtful again, and smiled. She said: ‘There is a Persian story I read as a girl, about a princess and a beggar, and a djinn. The beggar sets the djinn free from a bottle, and is rewarded with a wish; but the wish - they always do, alas! - comes with conditions. The man may live in ordinary comfort for seventy years; or he may live in pleasure - with a princess for a wife, and servants to bathe him, and robes of gold - he may live in pleasure, for five hundred days.’ She paused; then said: ‘Which would you choose, if you were that beggar?’ I hesitated. ‘Those stories are silly,’ I said at last. ‘Nobody is ever asked -’ ‘Which would you choose? The comfort; or the pleasure?’ She put her hand to my cheek. ‘I suppose then, the pleasure.’ She nodded: ‘Of course; and so did the beggar. I should be very sorry, if you had said the other thing.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Can you not guess?’ She smiled again. ‘You say that there is no one you must answer to. Have you no - sweetheart, even?’ I shook my head, and perhaps looked bitter, for she sighed with a kind of satisfaction. ‘Tell me, then: will you stay with me, here? - and be pleasured, and pleasure me, in your turn?’ For a second I only gazed stupidly at her. ‘Stay with you?’ I said. ‘Stay as what? Your guest, your servant -?’ ‘My tart.’ ‘Your tart!’ I blinked; then heard my voice grow a little hard. ‘And how should I be paid for that? Rather handsomely, I should think ...’ ‘My dear, I have said: you should have pleasure for your wages! You should live with me here, and enjoy my privileges. You should eat from my table, and ride in my brougham, and wear the clothes I will pick out for you - and remove them, too, when I should ask it. You should be what the sensational novels call kept.’ I gazed at her, then looked away - at the silken counterpane upon the bed, the japanned press, the bell-pull, the rosewood trunk .... I pictured my room at Mrs Milne’s, where I had come so close of late to real happiness; but I remembered too my growing obligations there, that had made me, more than once, uneasy. How much freer would I paradoxically be, bound to this lady - bound to lust, bound to pleasure! And yet, it was a little sickening, too, that she made such promises, so easily. I said - and again, my voice was hard - ‘And have you no fear of sensation then? You seem rather sure of me - but you know nothing about me!

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mueve la mirada entre nosotras y finalmente la deja sobre mí. Su cabello corto está un poco desordenado, y puedo ver el sudor de su día de trabajo todavía humedeciendo los lados, y la sombra de barba en su mandíbula. Marcas negras manchan sus antebrazos, y los tendones de sus manos bronceadas se flexionan cuando agarra su cinturón de herramientas y el contenedor del almuerzo. Inhala profundamente y avanza, colocando sus cosas sobre la isla. —¿Ya mudaron todo? —me pregunta, pasándose una mano por el cabello. Asiento. —Ajá —dejo escapar—. Quiero decir, sí. Mi corazón está haciendo esa cosa de nuevo, donde se siente como si estuviera navegando en olas del océano dentro de mi pecho, y no puedo recordar lo que se supone que debo hacer. Así que solo asiento de nuevo, parpadeando hasta que mi hermana aparece a mi lado y finalmente recuerdo lo que estaba pasando. —Pike. Señor Lawson —me corrijo—, lo siento. Esta es mi hermana, Cam. — Apunto hacia ella—. Y ya se iba. La mira. —Hola. Y después, para mi sorpresa, su mirada regresa a mí por un momento antes de mirar el correo sobre el mostrador y comienza a hojearlo como si no estuviéramos aquí. Parpadeo, un poco confundida. Cam es una atracción de feria. Puede que sea más joven que él, pero sin duda es una mujer, y la mayoría de los hombres dejan que sus ojos se detengan sobre ella, sus largas piernas y los pechos turgentes y grandes que tiene debajo de esa camiseta sin mangas. Él no. —Sí, encantada de conocerte —dice—. Gracias por recibirla. Nos lanza una mirada rápida y una media sonrisa antes de tomar todos los sobres y meterlos en un cajón del correo. Cam comienza a salir de la cocina, y la sigo mientras entra al cuarto de lavado. Una vez que está fuera de su línea de visión, gira, diciéndome con un brillo travieso en sus ojos abiertos: —Oh, Dios mío. Aprieto la mandíbula, sacudiendo mi barbilla para que siga caminando. Ahora va a estar aquí todos los días coqueteando con él. Escucho a Pike detrás de mí, abriendo uno de los hornos, y me doy vuelta. —Estaba preparando la cena —le digo—. Para nosotros tres. ¿Está bien? Cierra el horno, y veo un atisbo de alivio en su rostro. —Sí, eso es genial, en realidad. —Suspira—. Gracias. Estoy hambriento. —Estará lista en quince minutos. Alcanza el refrigerador y saca una Corona, mete la tapa debajo de un abridor clavado debajo de la isla y la quita, dejando caer la tapa en la basura. —Suficiente tiempo para ducharme —responde, mirándonos—. Disculpen. Y luego sale de la cocina, con la botella colgando de sus dedos mientras sale con solo medio paso. Me detengo, y de nuevo caigo en cuenta de lo alto que es. Esta es una casa de buen tamaño, también, pero sería imposible no notarlo en una habitación.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mis hombros se relajan un poco. Sabía que era solo una trama estúpida para que viniera aquí. Está bien. Me muevo entre la gente, intentado encontrar a Dutch y a los chicos, pero luego veo a Jordan alejarse de la máquina de música y regresar a la barra, y ahí es cuando la veo entre la multitud y veo lo que lleva puesto. Mis ojos se encienden. Jordan, Jesús... Sus jeans le quedan tan ajustados como siempre, las curvas de su trasero en forma de corazón son perfectas, pero sus malditos pechos amenazan con salirse de su... corsé. ¿Por qué demonios está usando lencería? Es una blusa blanca, brillante y atada al frente en un corpiño en forma de corazón con pequeños volantes de apariencia recatada a lo largo de los bordes. Mis ojos caen a su escote, mi cabeza gira con imágenes de lo que se derramará cuando lo desamarre esa noche. El corsé ni siquiera llega a la parte superior de sus jeans, sino que se detiene justo por encima de sus caderas, su cintura estrecha y su vientre atraen la atención de cada hombre junto al que pasa. Los cordones se ven ajustados, dándole un aspecto de reloj de arena que solo mendiga las manos de un hombre. Empuño las mías. La piel de sus hombros desnudos, su cabello cayendo por su espalda, el balanceo de sus caderas mientras camina... Arranco mis ojos antes de ser atrapado. Se abre paso hacia detrás de la barra de nuevo e ignoro algunas de las sonrisas satisfechas de los hombres que están en la habitación mientras la siguen con la mirada y trato de no preguntarme qué es lo que sus silenciosos susurros se dicen entre sí. Veo una mano agitándose en la esquina de mi visión y muevo mi mirada rápidamente hacia Dutch sentado con los chicos en una butaca. Me acerco. —¿Qué diablos lleva puesto? —refunfuño, deslizándome dentro de la butaca. Dutch gira su cabeza hacia mí, con su bebida a escasos centímetros de sus labios. —Es el espectáculo de lencería —me dice—. Lo tienen todos los jueves por la noche. Las cantineras y las camareras se ponen camisones o corsés y sirven bebidas y comida. Es divertido. No, en realidad no. Pero miro a mi alrededor y veo a otras mujeres que llevan aperitivos y traen bebidas, algunas de ellas con atuendos muy delgados. Al menos el corsé de Jordan parece tan delgado como una armadura. —Pero Jordan nunca lo ha hecho antes —continúa—. Eso es lo que me sorprendió. Pensé que deberías saberlo. —¿Por qué diablos querría saberlo? —Saco una cerveza del cubo de hielo sobre la mesa. —Sí, lo siento. —Se da vuelta, murmurando en su vaso—. Parece que no te puede importar menos. Lo miro de reojo, escuchando la risa en sus palabras.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “Okay.” She wished she’d left her T-shirt on over her bikini because eventually she was going to have to get up and when she did he was going to get an eyeful. She never should have bought this stupid suit with strings instead of straps. The second he let go she raced for her beach bag, rummaged through it, but couldn’t find her shirt. She pulled out a towel instead, quickly draping it over her shoulders, and just in time, too, because he was back, dropping to his knees beside her in the warm sand, offering a beer. She still hadn’t learned to like the taste of beer. She couldn’t understand why the Chicago Boys went on and on about it, debating the merits of ale versus lager, draft versus bottled, but she was thirsty, so she took it, held the can to her mouth and tried swigging. It made her cough and when she did, she dribbled beer down her chin and onto her chest— reminding her of that night two summers ago when the redhead had thrown beer in Bru’s face. “So, what’s behind that mask, Double?” Bru asked, pulling the towel from her shoulders. They were no longer Double Trouble, the team. As of today they’d become individuals. She was Double and Caitlin was Trouble. “Mask?” Vix asked. “Yeah, that mask you’re always wearing.” “You’re the one with the mask,” she told him, whipping off his mirrored sunglasses. Right away she regretted it because now he looked directly into her eyes, making her squirm. She broke the spell by looking away first. “Now Trouble ...” he said, leaning back on his elbows, watching Caitlin and Von frolicking like puppies, “she wears it like a badge. But you don’t need to advertise, do you?” The side of her brain that could still think, still function, was impressed by his observations. He reached up and caught a strand of her hair as it blew across her face, then tucked it behind her ear, letting his fingers drift to her neck, across her shoulder, down her arm, making her breasts ache and her Power tingle. When he got to her hand, he turned it over. If he kissed it the way the Countess once had she’d faint. Faint dead away. She’d tell him it was the sun, that she always passed out from too much sun. But no problem, he traced a line across her palm instead. She could hardly breathe. So this is what it’s like, this is how it feels.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  MARCEL AND I were walking through the darkness, in and out of cafés, pulling aside the heavy black curtains as we entered, which made us both feel as if we were going into some underworld, some city of the demons. Black, like the black underwear of the Parisian whore, the long black stockings of the cancan dancers, the wide black garters of the women especially created to satisfy men’s most perverse caprices, the tight little black corsets which set off the breasts and push them up towards men’s lips, the black boots of flagellation scenes in French novels. Marcel was shivering with the voluptuousness of it. I asked him, “Do you think there are places that make one feel like making love?” “I certainly do,” said Marcel. “At least, I feel this. Just as you felt like making love on top of my fur bed, I always feel like making love where there are hangings and curtains and materials on the walls, where it is like a womb. I always feel like making love where there is a great deal of red. Also where there are mirrors. But the room which excited me most was one I saw one time near the Boulevard Clichy. As you know, at the corner of this boulevard there is a famous whore with a wooden leg who has many admirers. I was always fascinated with her because I felt that I could never bring myself to make love to her. I was sure that as soon as I saw the wooden leg I would be paralyzed with horror.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  The gluttony of other men, their egotism, their eagerness to satisfy themselves without appreciation of her, made her hostile. But the Basque was gallant. He compared her skin to satin, her hair to moss, her odor to the scent of precious woods. Then he placed his sex at the opening and said tenderly: “Does it hurt? I won’t push it in if it hurts.” Such delicacy moved Viviane. She said, “It hurts just a little, but try.” He advanced only half an inch at a time. “Does it hurt?” He offered to take it out. Then Viviane had to press him, “Just the tip. Try again.” So the tip slipped in an inch or so, then rested. This gave Viviane plenty of time in which to feel its presence, time that other men did not give her. Between each tiny advance into her, she had leisure to feel how pleasant its presence was between the soft walls of flesh, how well it fitted, neither too tight nor too loose. Again he waited, then advanced a little more. Viviane had time to feel how good it was to be filled, how well suited the female crevice was to hold and to keep. The pleasure of having something to hold there, exchanging warmth, mingling the two moistures. He moved again. The suspense. The awareness of the emptiness when he withdrew—her flesh withered almost immediately. She closed her eyes. His gradual entrance threw radiations all around it, invisible currents warning the deeper regions of her womb that some explosion was coming, something made to fit in the soft-walled tunnel and to be devoured by its hungry depths, where restless nerves lay waiting. Her flesh yielded more and more. He entered further. “Does it hurt?” He took it out. She was disappointed and did not want to confess how she withered inside without his expanding presence.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  She lay back weary from desire and caresses, but without fulfillment. Pierre bent over her and said in a gentle voice: “I deserve this. You are hiding away, even though you want to meet me. I may have lost you forever.” “No,” said Elena, “wait. Give me time to believe in you again.” Before she left Pierre, he tried again to possess her. He again met with that secret, ultimately closed being, she who had attained a wholeness in sexual pleasure the first time she had been caressed by him. Then Pierre bowed his head and sat at the edge of the bed, defeated, sad. “But you’ll come back tomorrow, you’ll come back? What can I do to make you trust me?” He was in France without papers, risking arrest. For greater security Elena hid him at the apartment of a friend who was away. They met every day now. He liked to meet her in the darkness, so that before they could see each other’s face, their hands became aware of the other’s presence. Like blind people, they felt each other’s body, lingering in the warmest curves, making the same trajectory each time; knowing by touch the places where the skin was softest and tenderest and where it was stronger and exposed to daylight; where, on the neck, the heartbeat was echoed; where the nerves shivered as the hand came nearer to the center, between the legs. His hands knew the fullness of her shoulders so unexpected in her slender body, the tautness of her breasts, the febrile hairs under her arm, which he had asked her not to shave. Her waist was very small, and his hands loved that curve opening wider and wider from the waist to the hips. He followed each curve lovingly, seeking to take possession of her body with his hands, imagining the color of it. Only once had he looked at her body in full daylight, in Caux, in the morning, and then he had delighted in the color of it. It was pale ivory, and smooth, and only towards the sex this ivory became more golden, like old ermine. Her sex he called “the little fox,” whose hair bristled when his hand reached out for it. His lips followed his hands; his nose, too, buried in the odors of her body, seeking oblivion, seeking the drug that emanated from her body. Elena had a little mole hidden away in the folds of secret flesh between the legs. He would pretend to be seeking it when his fingers ran up between the legs and behind the fox’s bush, pretend to be wanting to touch the little mole and not the vulva; and as he caressed the mole, it was only accidentally that he touched the vulva, so lightly, just lightly enough to feel the quick plantlike contraction of pleasure which his fingers produced, the leaves of the sensitive plant closing, folding over the excitement, enclosing its secret pleasure, whose vibrato he felt.