Desire

Passages

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

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• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  all night. He never stops combing his hair and looking at himself in the mirror. He sends notes to her by go-betweens and messengers. He swears to serve her faithfully. He sings to her, trilling like some nightingale. He sends her spiced wine, mead and ale; he even offers her money, to spend in town. Some women can be won by cash, you see, just as some can be lured by kindness or taken by force. It depends on the circumstances. There was even a time when, to show his prowess as a performer, he agreed to take the part of Herod in the pageant plays. But what was the good of all this posturing? The point is that Alison loved another. No. Not the carpenter. Of course she could not love her husband. She loved the clerk and lodger, Nicholas. Absolon might as well go whistle in the wind. She treated him as a joke. She turned him into her pet monkey, and laughed at his screechings. The proverb is quite right. The one who is closest comes first. Out of sight is out of mind. Lively Nicholas was there in the house with her, while poor distraught Absolon was on the other side of town. You might say that Nicholas stood in his light. So good luck to you, young scholar, even though Absolon will wail ‘Alas!’ It happened that one Saturday the carpenter had gone back to Osney Abbey. Alison and Nicholas took advantage of his absence and conferred together. This was their plan. Nicholas would come up with a ruse to beguile the jealous old sod; if everything went well, then she would nestle in his arms all night. That was what both of them wanted. So without more ado Nicholas left her, and took up on a platter enough meat and drink to sustain him in his chamber for a day or two. If the carpenter asked after him, she was to say that she did not know where he was. That she had not seen him. That she had not heard from him. That she even wondered if he was ill - the maid had called for him, but there had been no answer from him. So all that Saturday there was silence. Nicholas lay very quietly in his chamber, eating and drinking and doing anything else he fancied. I could not say what. This lasted until Sunday evening. The old carpenter was by now in a state of some alarm, and wondered if his lodger had taken ill. Could it be the white death? ‘I am afraid,’ he said, ‘by the bones of all the saints. Something is wrong with Nicholas. God forbid that he should have died suddenly! This wicked world is uncertain enough. I saw today a corpse borne to church, who last Monday I saw at work.’ Then he turned to his servant-boy, Robin. ‘Go upstairs,’ he said, ‘and shout for him at his door.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  “According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my birth, since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I know, it was scarce possible to inherit a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did. I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master’s maid: the consequence of which was a big belly, and the loss of a place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of me to a poor relation in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a child she had by her first husband. I had, on that footing, been taken home, and was not six years old when this father-in-law died, and left my mother in tolerable circumstances, and without any children by him. As to my natural father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than a common sailor. As I grew up, under the eyes of my mother, who kept on the business, I could not but see, in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip, which she did not care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our passions than our features or complexions, and the bent of mine was so strong to the forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at length, of all her care and precaution. 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.

• From City of Night (1963)

  — and it is, because now Im in Echo Park, where a queen, camping by the head, calls out, “Hi babe — welcome to Jenny’s tearoom — and, you understand, Im Jenny, and this is my tearoom” — indicating the head (across the street from Aimee Semple McPherson’s Temple of appropriately Brotherly Love); going on: “I come here, oh, every day,” brazenly, “And I run away all those other hungry nelly queens first so I can have my pick of the cute tricks — and so, sweetie-love, if youve got A Mind To, would you join me in my tearoom for a few happy Wholesome moments?” — and soon after (mornings afternoons, nights fusing into a boundary-less existence) Im sitting in the balcony of a moviehouse in Hollywood — waiting purposely for someone to come on, turning him off to replace him with someone else — needfully adding numbers; and I leave the theater — alone — going back to that rented room in fulfilled — but only momentarily fulfilled — Awareness; and I meet a youngman, high on grass, and we drive to the hills, where the houses being built are mere skeleton frames against the grayish ghost-moon, where we turn on, smoking under the oppressive sky, and he comes on right there while I smoke looking at the stars, so few that I begin to count them — no longer looking at those stars now at a party that lasts two smoky nights, where I get so drunk I forget who I came here with, where I wake in a rumpled room, with people sleeping on chairs — and a pale wide-eyed, opportunistic, up-two-nights-in-a-row queen is saying to me almost worriedly: “You feel better now, honey?” — and I wonder what Ive said or done — but I no longer wonder when, only minutes later (or so it seemed — but it could have been hours), Im on Mulholland Drive in the parked car of a man just met: cramped in the car by the edge of a cliff overlooking the city — and another scene follows that rapidly, this time at Westlake, where two anxious fairies cruise me — one coming up saying hurriedly, “Right here — behind those trees — my “sister” will watch out for us” — and the sexnoises are stifled by the sounds of the ducks nearby shivering out of the lake-water, sounds of cars rushing along Wilshire — the park so dark, so dark, so dark, under now a starless night — that starless heaven soon replaced by the smoke-hugging ceiling in the bar where Im with a man Ive just scored from, where another score, with a youngman, talks to the man Im with about exchanging partners, and we all four go — and now coming out of a theater (the dungeon sex-head where they exchange partners, too), Im stopped by a man whos followed me and offers me “ten bills for just a few minutes — just a short time” — and I feel depressed, and I put him down, regretting it lonesomely as I go home and try to sleep and feel the Terror like a heavy blanket smothering me; but soon — and it's an afternoon — Im hitchhiking again on Sunset (not going anywhere — or, rather, going anywhere!), picked up this time by a very young fairy, with whom — because, he explains, he has A Jealous Lover — I go, instead, to the house of a friend of his — who surprisingly turns out to be a dark girl with gobbling eyes: the three of us making it, the nympho coming on like a starved fairy but not wanting to be screwed: and Im wondering why as I ride in a car with three men who will soon now come on, and I will feel hugely excited and momentarily surfeited, to be, oneway, the object of their desire — but surfeited, again, only for those few moments; and out on the streets to add more numbers, I get stopped, instead, by two cops — one frisking me Intimately against the car with the red light like an angry science-fiction eye; frisking me, his hands sliding between my legs, and I say, high on Sex: “Are you getting your kicks?” — which gets met aken to the station — not booked but fingerprinted illegally — and the cop, searching records to find a suspect who fits my description, says I gave him a fuck-you finger as he passed in His Car (which is not true), causing the detective there (more cool than most and not too fond of the paranoic cop anyway ...

• From City of Night (1963)

  He was still staring into the park. “Huh?” he said. “Man—” he starts. “Well, man—” And then, as he turned toward me briefly, the hat pushed back to get whatever still lingered of the smoggy sun, I saw the familiar smile gracing his face radiantly.... Had he even understood my question? I wondered, as, following his gaze, I realized why he is staring intently into the park.... Alone, about 17 or 18 years old—buttocks firm and saucy sculptured by a tight black skirt—her face heavily painted but still that of a very young girl—coy, a flirt, aware of her attractiveness—a cute young girl is walking in our direction, through the park.... And as she passes us now, she smiles. She walks to the water faucet, bends over to drink, staying there very long, casting surreptitious glances in our direction—exhibiting her little butt, stuck out toward us. Now, shaking her hair, which is vibrantly red and long to her shoulders, she stands by the faucet, waiting in posed bewilderment as if wondering where she will go next. “Hoddawg?” Chuck said, jumping off the railing in a sudden burst of energy. “Dig the smart little butt on that chick, man!” And pushing his widehat rakishly to one side of his head, he began to walk toward her, where she is now making her way slowly through the less-thick part of the park. And afterwards—? Suddenly the question I had asked made no difference. A short distance away, Chuck turned back to look at me, pushed the hat momentarily back on his head, and his mouth formed the word again: “Hoddawg!” He winked broadly—and then in a genuine cowboy gait, he swaggered toward the girl, who, aware now that he was coming after her, wiggled her butt cutely. CITY OF NIGHT AMONG THE BANDS OF MALEHUSTLERS that hang out in downtown Los Angeles, there are often a few stray girls: They are quite young, usually prematurely hardened, toughlooking even when theyre pretty. They know all about the youngmen they make it with and sometimes live with: that those youngmen hustle and clip other males. And aware of this, they dont seem to care. Occasionally, one of those girls will go into the park with a malehustler, sitting there until he will maybe spot a score; and then, as if by tacit agreement, theyll split: the youngman going off with the score, the girl back to Hooper’s coffee-and-donuts, where, in the afternoons at that time, they usually hung out.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  La dualidad de su traje de baño tiene a mi cerebro dando vueltas retorciéndose más y más, y estoy tan confundido. Usa negro en la parte inferior. Adulto, sexy y hermoso contra su piel bronceada. Y rosa en la parte superior. Inocente, dulce y enteramente Jordan, porque puede ser tan femenina. Sus tonificados y suaves muslos, y la expresión linda y estudiosa en su rostro mientras frunce el ceño y se concentra en su tarea. Todo sobre ella es joven. Excepto sus ojos. Unos ojos que pueden ser tan pacientes, porque ha tenido años de práctica siendo decepcionada, pero unos ojos que también pueden estar enojados, porque sabes que la mierda ha estado golpeando al ventilador en su vida desde el primer día y no ha disminuido un poco. Puedes ver su cerebro trabajando con cada decisión y cada interacción, porque ahora es tan buena para evaluar las consecuencias y el peligro que ahora se ha convertido en una segunda naturaleza. Sabe que el tiempo siempre pasa y su día llegará. Solo hay que esperar. Tiene la piel suave y el cuerpo de una mujer joven, pero los ojos de alguien que ha visto décadas. Mis ojos se deslizan hacia su boca, recordando la sensación de sus besos, y otra ráfaga de calor cubre mi pecho justo debajo de mi piel. Me alejo, deslizando mi mano por mi cabello mojado. No fue un golpe de suerte. La deseo. Me encanta su olor en la casa, la forma en que se sienta a mi lado, aquí o en el cine esa primera noche, tan fácil y cómodamente como si fuéramos dos guisantes en una puta vainita, y cómo me emociono al despertar todos los días sabiendo que puedo verla. —Jesucristo —digo en voz baja. Estoy teniendo mi primer enamoramiento en veinte años. —¿Qué? —La escucho preguntar. Alzo mi cabeza, girando es su dirección. ¿Lo dije en voz alta? —Nada —respondo rápidamente. Me mira mientras vacía la última pistola, y saco los flotadores de la piscina y los arrojo sobre la cubierta para evadir sus ojos. Quiero más de lo que sucedió la noche anterior, y no sé qué voy a hacer. Un teléfono comienza a sonar en la mesa de picnic otra vez, y miro hacia ella. —Tu teléfono está sonando de nuevo. Asiente, frunciendo levemente el ceño. —Sí, sé quién es. Mis cejas se elevan un poco. ¿A quién está tratando de evitar? El teléfono había sonado varias veces desde que había estado en casa y, que yo sepa, no había respondido. Me echa un vistazo, sin duda viéndome observarla con una mirada inquisitiva. Solo se ríe para sí misma y explica: —Los muchachos de la ciudad creen que soy fácil de seducir ahora que Cole y yo hemos terminado. —Desliza sus dedos por su cabello, dejando los mechones húmedos—. Están abalanzándose para consolarme. Dice lo último con comillas en el aire, y mi armadura se endurece al instante como el acero. ¿Consolarla?

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Los dos sabemos muy bien que arruiné su noche cuando estuvo aquí la última vez, por lo que puede estar "ayudando" todo lo que quiera, pero lo que realmente está haciendo es ayudarse a sí misma al sacarme de su camino. —¿Y qué le dijiste? —pregunta, inclinando la cabeza hacia atrás bajo el rocío y humedeciéndose el cabello. —Dije que lo pensaría. —Pero puedes ahorrar más dinero quedándote aquí por un tiempo —señala— . Creo que es lo mejor. ¿No? Me río, enjabonando mi esponja. Sus motivos tampoco son exactamente desinteresados. —Le preocupaba que pudiera sentirme incómoda —le explico—. Nosotros aquí solos, juntos... Me empuja contra la pared, y respiro hondo, dejando caer la esponja vegetal. Su mano se hunde entre mis piernas, y levanta mi rodilla, abriéndome para él. Suave y lentamente frota mi clítoris en círculos, haciéndome pulsar y debilitándome las rodillas. —¿Estás incómoda? —pregunta, su voz baja y ronca. —No. —Mi respiración tiembla—. ¿Pero tal vez echas de menos tener el lugar para ti? Tal vez pensó que estaba molestándote. Sus ojos acalorados se clavan en los míos, y sacude la cabeza lentamente. —Si te vas, no tendré todo lo que necesito en esta casa. Aumenta su velocidad, pasando su boca sobre la mía, y luego desliza un dedo en mi interior. Jadeo, cerrando mis ojos, y sus labios se hunden en los míos, besándome suave y lentamente mientras entra en mi cuerpo una y otra vez. Su lengua muerde mi labio superior, y luego susurra: —¿Cómo podría no querer volver a casa por esto todos los días? Tan jodidamente dulce. Se aparta de mí y luego se desliza dentro, esta vez con dos dedos, lento y gentil, mientras me clava en la pared. Dejo caer mi cabeza hacia atrás, gimiendo mientras mira mi rostro. Dios, es bueno. Me estiro entre nosotros y acaricio su polla. —Tiene razón en cuidarte, Jordan —dice mordiéndome el labio inferior—. Eres demasiado joven para todas las malditas cosas que quiero hacerte. —No soy tan joven —me burlo—. Tengo edad suficiente para muchas, de hecho. —¿Sí? —gime, poniéndose más grande y duro en mí mano—. Aguanta, cariño. Saca sus dedos, agarra la parte posterior de mis muslos, y me levanta, presionándome contra la pared. Su polla es larga, dura y lista, y lo siento provocando mi entrada. Sí. —¡Oye, Pike! —grita Dutch. Los dos levantamos la cabeza, Pike me baja al suelo, y vuelve la cabeza, mirando por el cristal esmerilado. —¡Estoy en la ducha! —gruñe, protegiendo mi cuerpo de la vista. —Sí, duh —bromea su amigo—. Tu teléfono sonó un par de veces. Parece Lindsay. Voy a ponerlo en el mostrador aquí. Pike presiona su cuerpo sobre mí, por lo que Dutch solo vería un cuerpo aquí si mirara el cristal. —Sí, gracias —dice secamente. Me muerdo el labio inferior, sintiéndome traviesa. Me apoyo en él, besando su mandíbula y acariciándolo. —Jordan... —gruñe entre dientes. Me río en silencio. —Shhh... —Escucho que me regaña.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  This was a language not of the tongue but of the body, its vocabulary the pressure of a finger or a palm, the nudging of a hip, the holding or breaking of a gaze, that said, You are too slow - you go too fast - not there, but here - that’s good - that’s better! It was as if we walked before the crimson curtain, lay down upon the boards, and kissed and fondled - and were clapped, and cheered, and paid for it! As Kitty had said, when I had whispered that wearing trousers upon the stage would only make me want to kiss her: ‘What a show that would be!’ But, that was our show; only the crowd never knew it. They looked on, and saw another turn entirely. Well, perhaps there were some who caught glimpses... I have spoken of my admirers. They were girls, for most part - jolly, careless girls, who gathered at the stage door, and begged for photographs, and autographs, and gave us flowers. But for every ten or twenty of such girls, there would be one or two more desperate and more pushing, or more shy and awkward, than the rest; and in them I recognised a certain - something. I could not put a name to it, only knew that it was there, and that it made their interest in me rather special. These girls sent letters - letters, like their stage door manners, full of curious excesses or ellipses; letters that awed, repelled and drew me, all at once. ‘I hope you will forgive my writing to say that you are very handsome,’ wrote one girl; another wrote: ‘Miss King, I am in love with you!’ Someone named Ada King wrote to ask if we were cousins. She said: ‘I do so admire you and Miss Butler, but especially you. Could you I wonder send a photograph? I would like to have a picture of you, beside my bed ...’ The card I sent her was a favourite of mine, a picture of Kitty and me in Oxford bags and boaters, in which Kitty stood with her hands in her pockets and I leaned with my arm through hers, a cigarette between my fingers.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  With her hands close-pressed about my head and her legs straddling mine, she gently lowered herself upon me; then proceeded to rise and sink, rise and sink, with an ever speedier motion. At first I held her hips, to guide them; then I returned a hand to her drawers, and let the fingers of the other creep round her thigh to her buttocks. My mouth I fastened now on one nipple, now on the other, sometimes finding the salt of her flesh, sometimes the dampening cotton of her chemise. Soon her breaths became moans, then cries; soon my own voice joined hers, for the dildo that serviced her also pleasured me - her motions bring it with an ever faster, ever harder pressure against just that part of me that cared for pressure best. I had one brief moment of self-consciousness, when I saw myself as from a distance, straddled by a stranger in an unknown house, buckled inside that monstrous instrument, panting with pleasure and sweating with lust. Then in another moment I could think nothing, only shudder; and the pleasure - mine and hers - found its aching, arching crisis, and was spent. After a second she eased herself from my lap, then straddled my thigh and rocked gently there, occasionally jerking, and at last growing still. Her hair, which had come loose, was hot against my jaw. At length she laughed, and moved again against my hip. ‘Oh, you exquisite little tart!’ she said. And thus we clasped one another, sated and spent, our legs inelegantly straddling that elegant, high-backed chair; and as the minutes passed I thought with something like dismay of how the night would now proceed. I thought, She’s had me fuck her; now she’ll send me home. If I’m in luck I might get a pound, for my trouble. It was the prospect of the sovereign, after all, which had lured me to her parlour in the first place. And yet, now, there was something inexpressibly dreary to me at the idea of quitting her company - of surrendering the toy to which I was strapped, and quieting the tommish urges it and its mistress had all unexpectedly revived. She raised her head and saw, I suppose, my downcast look. ‘Poor child,’ she said. ‘And do you always grow sorry, when your business is complete?’ She put a hand to my chin and tilted my face to the lamplight, and I caught her wrist and shook my head free. My cap - which had remained on my head through all our violent kisses - now fell off. She at once returned her hands to my face, and fingered my pomade-stiff ened hair; then she laughed, and rose, and walked into her bedroom. ‘Pour yourself some wine,’ she called. ‘And light me a cigarette, will you?’ I heard the hiss of water against china, and guessed that she was using the commode. I moved to the glass, and examined myself.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I crossed, and stood before her. I said, ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you the other night.’ She seemed embarassed at the memory, but laughed. ‘You didn’t frighten me,’ she said, as if she were never frightened. ‘You just gave me a bit of a start. If I’d known you were a woman — well!’ She blushed again - or it may have been the same blush as before, I couldn’t tell. Then she glanced away; and we fell silent. ‘Where’s your friend the musician?’ I said at last. I held an imaginary mandolin to my waist and gave it a couple of strums. ‘Miss Derby,’ she said with a smile. ‘She is back at our office. I do a bit of work with a charity, finding houses for poor families that’ve lost their homes.’ She had a plain East End accent, more or less; but her voice was deep and slightly breathy. ‘We have been trying for ages to get our hands on some of the flats in this block here, and that night you saw me we had moved our first family in - a bit of a success for us, we are only a small affair - and Miss Derby thought we should make a party of it.’ ‘Oh yes? Well, she plays very nicely. You should tell her to come and busk round here more often.’ ‘You live there then, do you?’ she asked, nodding towards Mrs Milne’s. ‘I do. I like to sit out on the balcony ... She raised her hand to tuck away a lock of hair beneath her bonnet. ‘And always in trousers?’ she asked me then, so that I blinked. ‘Only sometimes in trousers.’ ‘But always, to gaze at the women and give them a start?’ Now I blinked two or three times. ‘I never thought to do it,’ I answered, ‘before I saw you.’ It was the plain truth; but she laughed at it, as if to say, Oh yes. The laugh, and the exchange which had provoked it, was unsettling. I studied her more closely. As I had seen on that first night, she was not what you might term a beauty. She was thick at the waist and almost stout, and her face was broad, her chin a firm one. Her teeth were even, but not perfectly white; her eyes were hazel, but the lashes not long; her hands, however, seemed graceful. Her hair was the kind of hair we had all been thankful, as girls, that we did not have - for though she had bound it into a bun at her neck, the curls kept springing from it and twisting about her face. With the lamp behind it, too, it had seemed auburn; but it would really be more truthful to say that it was brown. I believe I liked it better that she was not more handsome.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  Long, however, the young spark did not remain before giving it two or three shakes, by way of brandishing it, he threw himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I could only take his being ingulphed for granted, by the directions he moved in, and the impossibility of missing so staring a mark; and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled so that I could scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the heaves and pantings that accompanied the action, from the beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of me, and made every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion grew so violent that it almost intercepted my respiration. Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse of my companions, and Phœbe’s minute detail of everything, no wonder that such a sight gave the last dying blow to my native innocence. Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by nature only, I stole my hand up my petticoats, and with fingers on fire, seized and yet more inflamed that center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as if it would force its way through my bosom: I breathed with pain; I twisted my thighs, squeezed and compressed the lips of that virgin slit, and following mechanically the example of Phœbe’s manual operation on it, as far as I could find admission, brought on at last the critical ecstasy, the melting flow, into which nature, spent with excess of pleasure, dissolves and dies away. After which, my senses recovered coolness enough to observe the rest of the transaction between this happy pair. The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady immediately sprung up, with all the vigour of youth, derived, no doubt, from her late refreshment; and making him sit down, began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and pinch his cheeks, and play with his hair: all which he received with an air of indifference and coolness that showed him to be much altered from what he was when he first went on to the breach. My pious governess, however, not being above calling in auxiliaries, unlocks a little case of cordials that stood near the bed, and made him pledge her in a very plentiful dram: after which, and a little amorous parley, Madam set herself down upon the same place, at the bed’s foot; and the young fellow standing sidewise by her, she, with the greatest effrontery imaginable, unbuttons his breeches, and removing his shirt, draws out his affair, so shrunk and diminished, that I could not but remember the difference, now crest-fallen, or just faintly lifting its head: but our experience matron very soon, by chaffing it with her hands, brought it to swell to that size and erection I had before seen it up to.

• From City of Night (1963)

  As I lean against the bar—for protection from the crushing mobs—leaning there next to Chi-Chi until the strategic time when I can move away—another queen, tossed out of the main current of the struggling bodies, spots Chi-Chi incredulously; but toning down the incredulity, she welcomed her to the queen sorority of the French Quarter. “Im—whew!—Echoes and Encores,” she says to the blond owl. “I never—whew!—seen you in the Quarter, but then—whew!—I just got here myself—and, well, I think We Girls—whew!—have got to stick together—or—whew!—we are Lost!... Oh, damn this maddening crowd anyway. Why dont they go home!” she shouted. She squeezed in next to me, smiling at me—Bewitchingly, she thinks—and lets her hand drop casually so that it floated tenuously over my groin. “Dont I know you from the 1-2-3 in L.A., doll?” she asked me. The floating hand finally cupped my crotch. I said maybe. “Well, it’s closed now, you know—so is Ji-Ji’s—the heat is on in downtown L.A. something fierce.” She emphasized the ferocity of heat-heavy Los Angeles with an intimate press of her searching hand.... She turns to the owlqueen Chi-Chi: “What is your name, sweetie?” she asks her. The owlqueen answered: “Chi-Chi.... And where did you get such a crazy handle like Echoes and Encores?” Holding herself as if a hundred cameras are focusing on her nonexistent beauty to record this revelatory moment, Echoes and Encores answers: “Well!... My Life Has Been Just That: a long, long series of echoes and encores.... Oh, Chi-Chi, honey,” she said dramatically as her hand more openly and with assurance now explores my thighs since I havent knocked it off, “I just got to tell you about a positively shattering experience I had just a while ago.” Suddenly she develops a thick, inconsistent Southern accent: “Ahm still shakin from it.” She held out her free hand—gloved (shes an elegant lady)—to prove it. “Ah saw this cute butch numbuh—and Ah wouldda swore hes a hustluh—and Ah thought: Well, your mothuh’s gonna go aftuh that one!... Well, honey, that butch numbuh turns out to be a les-bay-an—the butchest dam diesel dike y’evuh haid yuh gay eyes on!” Now she grinds her squirming butt against my pelvis and goes on: “I wanna tell you, Miss Chi-Chi: that dike was so dam butch if Ah wahnt such a lady muhself, why, I wouldda turned straight for huh.... Why, they are gettin butchuh and butchuh each yeah—those dam buildikes. And Ah don mine tellin you Ah personally think it is ob-see-an: girls dressed like men!” “Dikes gotta live too,” Chi-Chi growled hostilely at Echoes and Encores. “But, oh, me-oh-my!” shrieks Echoes and Encores, reaching out delightedly to touch Chi-Chi’s massively muscled arm. “Nevuh you mine about girls!... Ah just wanna ask you , Chi-Chi: Where did you get those Shoulders? And those Muscles—I swan! Rippling—thats what they are!... Honey, you just take off that dress and that paint and I’ll marry you!”

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Me muero por probarte —le digo—. Y sentirte. Cada día se hace más difícil ignorar lo que mi cuerpo quiere. Me despierto tan mojada, Pike. —Muevo mi boca hacia la suya, cubriendo nuestros labios—. Quiero que me desees. Quiero verte deseándome y corriéndote sobre mí. Puedo sentir la humedad escurriéndose entre mis piernas, y su aliento es tan caliente. Me apoyo nuevamente sobre mis pies, pero mantengo mis ojos en los suyos. —Me encanta cómo te preocupas por mí y cómo quieres protegerme —le digo—. Pero una niña también tiene necesidades, y eventualmente, tendré que buscar a otro hombre que pueda hacer mejor tu trabajo. La rabia arde detrás de su mirada congelada, pero no pestañea. —Otro hombre me besará. —Suspiro—. Y me quitará la ropa y me mirará en su cama, en su ducha, y me extenderá sobre la mesa de la cocina para desayunar... Los labios de Pike están casi retorcidos en un gruñido, y está respirando con fuerza, dentro y fuera, dentro y fuera mientras me fulmina con la mirada. Está ahí. Puedo sentirlo. Es como si estuviéramos envueltos juntos, el calor entre nosotros es casi sofocante, y todo lo que tiene que hacer es tender la mano y tomarme en sus brazos. Tómame. Espero. Soy tuya. Solo extiende la mano y tómame. Pero no lo hace. Solo se queda allí, y las lágrimas arden en la parte posterior de mis ojos mientras se mantiene inmóvil. Poco dispuesto. Mi corazón está rompiéndose. Sacudo la cabeza. —No tienes ni idea de qué hacer conmigo, ¿verdad? Me burlo y me alejo, pero de repente, agarra mis brazos y me lleva de vuelta hacia él. Jadeo mientras pone sus manos bajo mis brazos y me levanta sobre mis pies, llevándome cara a cara con él como si tuviera cinco años. —Oh, puedo estar fuera de práctica, pequeña niña —dice en tono amenazante—, pero creo que lo resolveré. Y me atrae hacia sí, besándome y robando mi aliento tan duramente que lo único que puedo hacer es envolver mis piernas a su alrededor y aguantar. Maldición, sí. Maldita sea ella. Maldita sea. No me voy a detener. A la mierda. No puedo. Siguió presionando y presionando, presionando todos mis botones, todo lo que sabía me traería a esto, y yo quería que lo hiciera. En el fondo de mi mente, siempre supe que no podría no tenerla. Agarro su trasero y caemos en su cama. Abre sus piernas y se sienta a horcajadas sobre mí, nuestros labios nunca rompen el contacto. Amo su boca. Caliente y dulce, y se burla de mí con esa lengua, meneando y deslizándose de maneras que me vuelven loco. —Odiaba sentirme así. —Jadea. —¿Así cómo? —Deslizo mis manos sobre ella, agarrando y apretando mientras respira por mi boca y me aprieta, poniéndome dolorosamente duro. —Celosa —dice.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  Phœbe lay down by me, and asked me archly, “if, now that I had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid of him? or did I think I could come to a close engagement with him?” To all which, not a word on my side; I sighed, and could scarcely breathe. She takes hold of my hand, and having rolled up her own petticoats, forced it half strivingly, towards those parts, where, now grown more knowing, I missed the main object of my wishes; and finding not even the shadow of what I wanted, where every thing was so flat, or so hollow, in the vexation I was in at it. I should have withdrawn my hand, but for fear of disobliging her. Abandoning it then entirely to her management, she made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself rather the shadow than the substance of any pleasure. For my part, I now pined for more solid food, and promised tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much longer with this foolery of woman to woman, of Mrs. Brown did not soon provide me with the essential specific. In short, I had all the air of not being able to wait the arrival of my lord B——, though he was now expected in a very fews days: nor did I wait for him, for love itself took charge of the disposal of me, in spite of interest, or gross lust. It was now two days after the closet scene, that I got up about six in the morning, and leaving my bedfellow fast asleep, stole down, with no other thought than of taking a little fresh air in a small garden, which our back parlour opened into, and from which my confinement debarred me, at the times company came to my house; but now sleep and silence reigned all over it. I opened the parlour door, and well surprised was I at seeing, by the side of a fire half-out, a young gentleman in the old lady’s elbow chair, with his legs laid upon another, fast asleep, and left there by his thoughtless companions, who had drank him down, and then went off with every one but his mistress, whilst he stayed behind by the courtesy of the old matron, who would not disturb or turn him out in that condition at one in the morning; and beds, it is more than probable there were none to spare. On the table still remained the punch bowl and glasses, stewed about in their usual disorder after a drunken revel.

• From City of Night (1963)

  (It’s a summer day, the warmth hugs the director’s house, this garden, loving the luxury, too: a Special warmth. And Skipper looks about him hungrily. The director senses the Craving in Skipper’s eyes — which he knew would be there even from the photographs — as he has sensed it many times before in others; and he looks around at his house, his garden, his pool, owning every inch of it, possessing it. Now he looks at Skipper in the same way. “Would you like to take a swim?” he asks Skipper. And Skipper, in his early 20s then, goes swimming in the director’s pool, and the water embraces him as if he, too, were meant for all this luxury. When he comes out of the water, laughing — the director places his hand on Skipper’s shoulder and says: “I have a feeling youre my new Discovery.”) “He asked me to move in with him,” Skipper was saying now, spewing out for the fatman with the cigar the steps by which his life had led him to squint his eyes now at Harry’s bar. “How long?” the fatman shoots at him. “I moved in the next day,” Skipper said evasively. “He said I’d be real big in the flix—I heard him—he told everyone I was his Biggest Discovery.” (“Youre a Very Beautiful Boy,” the director tells Skipper. “And in this town thats All that matters”) “He took me around—showed me off,” Skipper said. He smiles, the phantom smile of the youngman who believes hes seeing materialize fully the world hes been searching. “Man—I was really Someone!” (Skipper learns how to make drinks—like the youngman who would be there when I would meet the director later. He learns, at dinner, to cue the director’s best stories: “Remember when you were filming Angels in Paradise?” he may say, and the director: “Oh, yes — it was very amusing. The star was —...”) “And what did you have to do in return?” the fatman said. “Or did you just live there?” he asked derisively. Skipper’s eyes rise slowly from the surface of the table—he erases the circles of water in one sweeping move of his palm—and focuses his eyes evenly on the fatman. “I—” he started, and then instinctively he wiped his lips as if in physical disgust at the remembered contact “Nothing!” he almost shouted. (Skipper learns, for the first time, to reciprocate in bed — to close his eyes in order to stem the revulsion — to concentrate on the doors swinging open before him, leading to that glittering world .... Those first weeks he and the director will be alone. The groups of other youngmen are no longer invited. And in the afternoons, when hes not at the studio, Skipper will dive into the water of the pool, which, warming him, will reassure him....) “How long did you stay there?” the fatman persisted. “A month—more—maybe two—” Skipper says at last “Why didnt you stay longer?”

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  “It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking, which in my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something very fatal, was no other than a trick of diving, which I had not ever heard, or at least attended o, the mention of: and he was so long-breathed at it, that in the few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose, seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was, that some young woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could not have fallen asleep there without his having seen me before: agreebly to which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign of life, and still perplexed as he was what to think of the adventure, he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into the summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there he laid me down on the couch, and tried, as he protested in good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again, till fired, as he said, beyond all bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me, which were unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon being a feint, was not the very truth of the case; seduced then by this flattering notion, and overcome by the present, as he styled them, super-human temptations, combined with the solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was not enough his own master not to make it. Leaving me then just only whilst he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced, he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and interesting an object to me, wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all sense of the past injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips, pressed them tenderly to pass his pardon in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it being carried to my heart, and thence to my new discovered sphere of Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him nothing. When now he managed his caresses and endearments so artfully, as to insinuate the most soothing consolations for the past pain and the most pleasing expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept my eyes from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a glimpse of that instrument of mischief which was now, obviously even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a comparative observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and grew greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employed such tender prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning passion of desire being now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of the sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield at length at the force of the present impressions, and he obtained of my tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure left in the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life, and abilities to guard it.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  I had now, through more than one rent, discovered and felt his thighs, the skin of which seemed the smoother and fairer for the coarseness, and even the dirt of his dress, as the teeth of negroes seem the whiter for the surrounded black; and poor indeed of habit, poor of understanding, he was, however, abundantly rich in personal treasures, such as flesh, firm, plump, and replete with the juices of youth, and robust well-knit limbs. My fingers too had now got within reach of the true, the genuine sensitive plant, which, instead of shrinking from the touch, joys to meet it, and swells and vegetates under it: mine pleasingly informed me that matters were so ripe for the discovery we meditated, that they were too mighty for the confinement they were ready to break. A waistband that I unskewered, and a rag of a shirt that I removed, and which could not have covered a quarter of it, revealed the whole of the idiot’s standard of distinction, erect, in full pride and display: but such a one! it was positively of so tremendous a size, that prepared as we were to see something extraordinary, it still, out of measure, surpassed our expectation, and astonished even me, who had not been used to trade in trifles. In fine, it might have answered very well the making a skew of; its enormous head seemed, in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep’s heart; then you might have trolled dice securely along the broad back of the body of it; the length of it too was prodigious; then the rich appendage of the treasure-bag beneath, large in proportion, gathered and crisped up round in shallow furrows, helped to fill the eye, and complete the proof of his being a natural, not quite in vain; since it was full manifest that he inherited, and largely too, the prerogative of majesty which distinguishes that otherwise most unfortunate condition, and gave rise to the vulgar saying “That a fool’s bauble is a lady’s playfellow.” Not wholly without reason: for, generally speaking, it is in love as it is in war, where the longest weapon carries it. Nature, in short, had done so much for him in those parts, that she perhaps held herself acquitted in doing so little for his head.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  “But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that objects which affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw our eyes as forcibly as those that please us. I could not long withstand that nameless impulse, which, without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me towards it; emboldened too by my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I ventured by degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and alarming to my virgin modesty as a naked man. “But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was in general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which the sun playing upon made the reflection of it perfectly beamy. His face, in the confusion I was in, I could not well distinguish the lineamints of, any farther than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in it. The frolic and various play of all his fine polished limbs, as they appeared above the surface, in the course of his swimming or wantoning with the water, amused and insensibly delighted me; sometimes he lay motionless, on his back, waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head of hair, that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls. Then the overflowing water would make a separation between his breast and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not escape observing so remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy tuft, out of which appeared to emerge a round, softish, limber, white something, that played every way, with ever the least motion or whirling eddy. I cannot say but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct, attracted, detained, captivated my attention: it was out of the power of all my modesty to command my eye away from it; and seeing nothing so very dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all my fears: but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes took place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had so long lain dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made me feel my sex for the first time. He had now changed his posture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out with his legs and arms; finer modeled than which could not have been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a neck and shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off. Then the luxuriant swell of flesh that rose from the small of his back, and terminates its double cope at where the thighs are set off, perfectly dazzled one with its watery glistening gloss.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  “What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprise were instantly subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke in great presence of mind from the turn this adventure might take. He seemed to me no other than a pitying angel, dropt out of the clouds: for he was young and perfectly handsome, which was more than even I had asked for, man, in general, being all that my utmost desires had pointed at. I thought then I could not put too much encouragement into my eyes and voice; I regretted no leading advances; no matter for his after-opinion of my forwardness, so it might bring him to the point of answering my pressing demands of present case; it was not now with his thoughts but his actions that my business immediately lay. I raised then my head, and told him, in a soft tone, that tended to prescribe the same key to him, that his mamma was gone out and would not return till late at night: which I thought no bad hint; but as it proved, I had nothing of a novice to deal with. The impressions I had made on him from the discoveries I had betrayed of my person in the disordered motions of it, during his view of me asleep, had, as he afterwards told me, so fixed and charmingly prepared him, that, had I known his dispositions, I had more to hope from his violence, than to fear from his respect; and even less than the extreme tenderness which I threw into my voice and eyes, would have served to encourage him to make the most of the opportunity. Finding then that his kisses, imprinted on my hand, were taken as tamely as he could wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his to them, made me so faint with overcoming joy and pleasure, that I fell back, and he with me, in course, on the bed, upon which I had, by insensibly shifting from the side to near the middle, invitingly, made room for him. He is now lain down by me, and the minutes being too precious to consume in ultimate ceremony, or dalliance, my youth proceeds immediately to those extremities, which all my looks, humming and palpitations, had assured him he might attempt without the fear of a repulse: those rogues the men, read us admirably on these occasions. I lay then at length panting for the imminent attack, with wishes far beyond my fears, and for which it was scarce possible for a girl, barely thirteen, but tall and well grown, to have better dispositions. He threw up my petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an instinct of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so thoroughly destroyed all modesty in me, that even their being now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the prelude that pleasure deepened my blushes at, more than same.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  They assured me that I was so perfectly to their taste, as to have but one fault against me, which I might easily be cured of, and that was my modesty: this, they observed, might pass for a beauty the more with those who wanted it for a heightener; but their maxim was, that it was an impertinent mixture, and dashed the cup so as to spoil the sincere draught of pleasure; they considered it accordingly as their mortal enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met with it. This was a prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensued. In the midst of all the frolic and wantonness, which this joyous band had presently, and all naturally, run into, an elegant supper was served in, and we sat down to it, my spark elect placing himself next to me, and the other couples without order or ceremony. The delicate cheer and good wine soon banished all reserve; the conversation grew as lively as could be wished, without taking too loose a turn: these professors of pleasure knew too well, how to stale impressions of it, or evaporate the imagination of words, before the time of action. Kisses however were snatched at times, or where a handkerchief round the neck interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected: the hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till the provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my particulars’s proposal for beginning the country dances was received with instant assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instruments were in tune. This was a signal for preparation, that the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood life, took for her cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for personal service herself, and content with having settled the order of battle, she left us the field, to fight it out at discretion.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  This is, indeed, a provocative and consequential gesture, with new critical perspectives, approaches, and epistemologies, that interrogates black womanhood within intersectional, integrative, cross-cultural and other frameworks. We need more scholarship that examines, without ambiguity, ambivalence, or "fear of reprisals," the dynamics governing black womanhood and the politics of representation. We need work that transcends ideological and disciplinary boundaries and further engages race, gender, and sexuality. We need discourses that transcend silence, omission, and limitation. We need politics and practices that reflect the totality of our humanity, as well as our individual and collective experiences. We need models and paradigms that broaden our understandings of the functions and conventions governing our identities and representations of them. We need future projects, like this one and our First Lady's official White House photograph, that, simply put, transgress. [image file=img/page0217_0000.svg] Introduction 1. Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed 19. 2. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham coins the terminology "politics of silence" in reference to the strategic secrecy surrounding black women's sexuality-or what Darlene Clark Hine refers to as a "culture of dissemblance." For discussions, see Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent; and Hine, "Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West." 3. For extensive discussions of the "cult of true womanhood," see Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820-1860"; and Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood. Carby examines the cultural and political impact of the cult of true womanhood on representations of black women in abolitionist literature, as well as the ways in which these ideologies informed black women's display of propriety and respectability after the cult of true womanhood was no longer "the dominant ideological code." For scholarship on the gender politics of black nationalism, see Collins, "When Fighting Words Are Not Enough"; Lubiano's "Black Nationalism and Black Common Sense"; and J.H.Scott, "From Foreground to Margin." 4. Dubey, Signs and Cities 31. 5. D.Scott, Extravagant Abjection 18. 6. See Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood; Tate, Domestic Allegories of Political Desire; duCille, The Coupling Convention; Dubey, Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic; Jenkins, Private Lives, Proper Relations; and Thompson, Beyond the Black Lady. 7. My assertion here benefited from the intellectual insight of literary scholar and critic Cathy Schlund-Vials, who advanced my thinking regarding this interregnum period and multiculturalism. 8. While "mainstream" scholars theorizing about transgression typically ignore issues of race and the racialized dynamics, I do want to acknowledge that a great deal of work is treated by queer of color scholars, as well as theorists in race and sexuality and black queer studies, who do engage racialized blackness and transgression broadly construed. 9. Cohen, "Deviance as Resistance" 24.