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 Erotic Mind (1995)

  Notice how he is the source of all the action. But notice also that she is the primary recipient of the attention and pleasure—after all, it’s her fantasy. It could be argued that a girl’s early fantasies of sexual surrender are part of her internal preparation for the submissive role she will later be expected to play. After all, the most familiar images of male-female sexual interaction include at least mild domination by the man along with a complementary yielding by the woman. If, however, early submission fantasies help prepare us for adult sex-role behavior, many of the men in The Group appear to have been studying the wrong scripts as boys. When men remember images’ of power in their earliest fantasies, as they often do, they’re just as likely as women to be submitting to a highly desirable but more experienced and powerful other, as in Juan’s fantasy: When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I had a crush on my teacher. Miss Peters. I would fantasize that I did something bad (even though in reality I tried to be her favorite) so I had to stay after school. I imagined she took off my clothes to punish me, but I didn’t mind a bit. I wanted her to touch me. I especially liked the idea of being forced to sit under her desk while she graded papers, waiting for her to spread her legs so I could sneak a peek at her panties. With few exceptions, when The Group’s earliest fantasies involve power roles, the fantasizer, whether a boy or a girl, is being guided, coaxed, or forced into sensual or sexual experimentation. Yet such fantasies are virtually always described as pleasurable, with the frequent exception of guilt afterward. In my view, we first discover the erotic potentials of receptivity and aggression in the powerlessness, especially concerning sexual matters, of our youth. PARADOXES OF POWERPower positions in sex are often described as “top” (the forceful, aggressive initiator) or “bottom” (the receptive, yielding responder). At first glance it may appear obvious who’s playing which role. It’s commonly assumed, for instance, that the inserter in intercourse—vaginal or anal—is the top, while the insertee is the bottom. Likewise, a person being “done” or pleasured is seen as bottom because the “doer” is more active. Perceptions shift, however, in male-male encounters; the receiver of oral stimulation is usually seen as the top because he is assumed to be in a more manly position. When people describe the subjective experience of a top-bottom encounter, there’s hardly anything obvious about who’s in control. I have consistently observed that whenever people engage in sexual power exchanges voluntarily and enthusiastically, whether they play the role of top or bottom, they feel an enormous sense of powerfulness and validation. Peter, a construction worker in his mid-thirties, demonstrates the paradox of empowerment through submission, as his beautiful and aggressive girlfriend teaches him a thing or two:

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I wonder if we will discover a fourth. Even as I come across pages of Knotted and hand them to Isaac, it is the nameless book that catches my attention. Each page has a line that pulls at my eyes. I read them, re-read them. No one I know writes this way, yet it is so familiar. I feel a lust for this author’s words. A jealousy at being able to string such rich sentences together. The first line keeps coming back to me with each subsequent line I read. The punishment for her peace was upon him, and he gave her rest. I don’t notice when Isaac disappears from the room to make us food. I smell it when he comes back and hands me a bowl of soup. I set it aside, intent on finishing my work, but he picks it up and places it back in my hands. “Eat it,” he instructs me. I don’t realize how hungry I am until I reluctantly place the spoon in my mouth, sucking the salty brown broth. I set the spoon aside and drink from the bowl, my eyes still scanning the piles set neatly around me. My leg is aching, as is my back, but I don’t want to stop. If I ask Isaac to help me move he will guess at my discomfort and force me to rest. I rub the small of my back when he’s not looking, and press on. “I know what you’re doing,” he says, as he leans over his pile of pages. I look up in surprise. “What?” “When you think I’m not looking, I am.” I flush, and my hand automatically reaches for my aching muscles. I pull back at the last minute and curl my hand into a fist instead. Isaac snickers and shakes his head, turning back to his work. I’m glad he doesn’t press the issue. I pick up another page. It’s my own. The story I wrote for Nick. Instead of putting it on its pile, I read it. True and trite. It was my call to him. The first line of the book went like this: Every time you want to remember what love feels like, you look for me. That line grabbed every woman who had ever offered their throbbing little heart to a man. Because we all have someone who reminds us of what love stings like. That unreliquished love that slips between our fingers like sand. The second line of the book confused them a little. It’s why their eyes kept following my trail of words. I was dropping breadcrumbs for the disaster that was to come. Stay the fuck away from me. I only wrote the book because he wrote one for me. It seemed fair. Most people text, or call, or write e-mails. My love and I write each other books.

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

  "The old general chuckled, evidently enjoying the fun. "The Spahi then made his bed-fellow go on all fours, with his head down and his backside up; then he slipped the dates into the hole of the anus, where he nibbled them as his friend pressed them out, after which he licked carefully all the syrup that oozed out and trickled on the buttocks. "Everybody applauded and the two men evidently were excited, for their battering-rams were jerking up their heads, and nodding significantly. "'Wait, don't get up yet,' said the Spahi, 'I haven't yet quite finished; let me just put the fruit of the tree of knowledge into it.' Thereupon he got on him, and taking his instrument in his hand, he pressed it into the hole in which the dates had been; and slippery as the gap was, it disappeared entirely after a thrust or two. The officer then did not pull it out at all, but only kept rubbing himself against the other man's buttocks. Meanwhile the cock of the sodomized man was so restless that it commenced beating a tattoo against its owner's stomach. "'Now for the passive pleasures that are left for age and experience,' said the general. And he began to teaze the glans with his tongue, to suck it, and to twiddle the column with his fingers in the deftest way. "The delight expressed by the sodomized man seemed indescribable. He panted, he shivered, his eyelids drooped, his lips were languid, the nerves of his face twitched; he seemed, every moment, ready to faint with too much feeling. Still he appeared to be resisting the paroxysm with might and main, knowing that the Spahi had acquired abroad the art of remaining in action for any length of time. Every now and then his head fell as if all his strength was gone, but then he lifted it up again, and—opening his lips—'Someone—in my mouth,' said he. "The Italian Marquis, who had doffed his gown, and who had nothing on but a diamond necklace and a pair of black silk stockings, got astride on two stools over the old general, and went to satisfy him. "At the sight of this tableau vivant of hellish concupiscence, all our blood rose bubbling to our heads. Everyone seemed eager to enjoy what those four men were feeling. Every unhooded phallus was not only full of blood, but as stiff as a rod of iron, and painful in its erection. Everyone was writhing as if tormented by an inward convulsion. I myself, not inured to such sights, was groaning with pleasure, maddened by Teleny's exciting kisses, and by the doctor, who was pressing his lips on the soles of my feet. "Finally, by the lusty thrusts the Spahi was now giving, by the eager way the general was sucking and the Marquis was being sucked, we understood that the last moment had come.

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

  But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible was wrought in me, such violent, yet pleasingly irksome sensations took possession of me that I scarce knew how to contain myself; the smart of the lashes was now converted into such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me sigh, squeeze my thighs together, shift and wriggle about my seat, with a furious restlessness; whilst these itching ardours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of discipline had principally fallen, detached legions of burning, subtile, stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of assemblage, where their titillation raged so furiously, that I was even stinging made with them. No wonder then that in such a taking, and devoured by flames that licked up all modesty and reserve, my eyes, now charged brimful of the most intense desire, fired on my companion very intelligible signal of distress: my companion, I say, who grew in them every instant more amiable, and more necessary to my urgent wishes and hopes of immediate ease. Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations, soon knew the pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out of the way, he began a prelude that flattered me with instant relief, to which I was not, however, so near as I imagined: for as he was unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and rouse to action his unactive torpid machine, he blushingly owned that no good was to be expected from it, unless I took it in hand to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just refreshing the smart of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more than a boy’s top, keep up without lashing.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It made me wonder what he did on the mornings of his days off. He walked toward me and stopped just in time to keep two solid feet between us. He was wearing a light blue fleece, pushed up past his elbows. I was shocked to see the dark ink of tattoos peeking out. What type of doctor had tattoos? “I have a doctor’s appointment,” I said stepping around him. “I’m a doctor.” I was glad to be turned away from him when I smiled. “Yes, I know. There are quite a few others in the state of Washington.” His head jerked back like he was surprised I was anything but the stoic, expressionless victim he’d been cooking for. I was opening the driver’s side door to my Volvo when he held out his hand for my keys. “I’ll drive you.” I dropped my eyes into his hand and snuck another look at the tattoos. Words—I could just make out the tip of them. My eyes slid up the sleeves of his shirt and rested on his neck. I didn’t want to look in his eyes when I handed him my keys. A doctor who loved words. Imagine that. I was curious. What did a man who had held a screaming woman all night have written on his body? I sat in the passenger seat and instructed Isaac where to go. My radio was on the classical station. He turned it up to hear what was playing and then lowered it back down. “Do you ever listen to music with words?” “No. Turn left here.” He turned the corner and shot me a curious look. “Why not?” “Because simplicity speaks the loudest.” I cleared my throat and stared straight ahead. I sounded like such a chump. I felt him looking at me, cutting into me like one of his patients. I didn’t want to be dissected. “Your book,” he said. “People talk about it. It’s not simple.” I don’t say anything. “You need simplicity to create complexity,” he said. “I get it. I suppose too much can clog up your creativity.” Exactly. I shrugged. “This is it,” I said softly. He turned into a medical complex and pulled into a parking spot near the main entrance. “I’ll wait for you right here.” He didn’t ask where I was going or what I was here for. He simply parked the car where he could see me walk in and out of the building and waited. I liked that. Dr. Monroe was an oncologist. In mid December I found a lump in my right breast. I forgot about the worry of cancer in the wake of a more immediate and needier pain. I sat in his waiting room, my hands pressed between my knees, a strange man waiting in my car, and all I could think about were Isaac’s words.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Hard at first—like he’s angry—but when I touch his face he softens. It’s when his lips drag slowly across mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth that I relax. My legs lift off of the table and my feet cradle his waist. Heat; heat on the arches of my feet, heat on my mouth, heat pressed between my legs. He reaches down and pulls my robe open all the way. I lift my arms out of the robe and wrap them around him. Then he rolls me until I’m on top of him. I sit up and he lifts me at the waist until I’m hovering above his erection. He’s right there; the tip is touching me. All I have to do is push down and he will be inside of me. And I want him to be. Because I need to touch and be touched. But Isaac is hesitating. He doesn’t want to let go of my waist. He’s thinking of his wife; I’m thinking of his wife. I’m about to tell him, forget it, when he abruptly releases his hold on my waist. Without him suspending me, and with no warning I slide onto him. I suck air loudly. It’s a gasp if I’ve ever heard one. One minute I’m empty, the next I’m full. A deep, slow panic. He does not belong to me. What am I doing? I try to climb off him, but he grabs my wrists and rolls on top of me, pinning me down. He kisses me slowly with both hands pressed against the sides of my face, all the while moving slowly in and out of me. “I want to be with you,” he says into my mouth. “Stop it.” So I stop it. I let him kiss and stroke and touch and I don’t fight him. We’ve only had sex once; in the rain, on the carousel, with me on top. Now, it doesn’t feel so much like sex. It feels intimate. I’ve never done what we are doing. Not with anyone. Not even with Nick. I’ve never laced my hands in a man’s hair and breathed into his mouth with abandon, and wanted him to be as deeply inside of me as he could—because it felt more real that way. And a man has never buried his face into my neck and moaned, like every movement inside of me is worth a reaction. But we are here on the table, rocking against each other and having the kind of sex that is breathless and tender and hard all at the same time. He is touching me everywhere. His fingers roving over my chest and back and thighs. It makes me feel like I am something beautiful rather than this atrocity that life has turned me into. And while Isaac is inside of me I forget everything.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Montoll opened his mouth to speak, but Isaac cut him off. “The patient has made her decision, doctor.” He was staring straight at me when he said it. I pulled my lips tight, in thanks. “If my services aren’t needed, you’ll excuse me,” Dr. Montoll said, before making his exit. I looked at my hands. Dr. Akela sat on the edge of my bed. We spoke for a few minutes about the radiation I’d have to go through after my surgery. Six weeks. I had to admire her bedside manner; she was warm and personal. On her way out she touched Isaac lightly on the back of his arm. Mine. Isaac waited until the door clicked shut before he took a step forward. I braced myself for an influx of questions, but instead he said, “You can get dressed now. Are you free for lunch?” I blinked up at him. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Eating lunch with a patient?” He smiled. “Yes, we’d have to go somewhere other than the hospital cafeteria.” I was about to say no , when I heard the lyrics of the song he gave me this morning, playing in my head. Who gave someone a song that said, No need to worry because everybody will die when they had cancer? I liked it. It was the honesty. “All right,” I said. He glanced at his watch. “Meet you in the parking lot in ten?” I nodded. I got dressed and made my way downstairs. “I’m over this way,” he said, once I found him in the parking lot. He’d changed out of his scrubs and was wearing a white shirt and grey pinstriped pants. I followed him to his car, and he opened the door for me. It was too much. I freaked. “I can’t do this,” I said. I backed away from the car. “I’m sorry. I need to get home.” I didn’t look back as I walked toward my car. He probably thought I was losing my mind. There was a good chance I was. Isaac was waiting for me when I got home a few hours later, leaning against his car with his face turned upward. Soak it up, Isaac, I thought. Tomorrow my clouds will be back. For a brief second, I thought about not turning into my driveway and heading up to Canada instead. But I’d been driving around for hours and the needle to my gas tank was pointing to E. I wanted to go home. I walked past him to the front door. We were barely past the foyer when I said, “Why didn’t you ask me why I don’t want reconstruction?” “Because if you want to tell me, you will.” “We’re not friends, Isaac!” “No?” “I don’t have friends. Can’t you see that?” “I can see that,” he said. I waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I mean, sure she was stunning—but it was more than that. She was a house with no windows. You could go crazy in one of those. I wanted in. She eyed my dog. “I can drop him off, my house is on the way to town.” She paused only to check her watch before nodding. We walked in silence for a few blocks. She kept her head down, choosing the sidewalk over the rest of the world. I wondered if she liked the cracks, or if she just didn’t want to meet the eyes of the people we passed. It might have felt uncomfortable, our quiet walking, but it didn’t. I suspected her to be a woman of few words. Muses often spoke with their eyes and their bodies. The power they supply is electrifying in itself. They set fire to your synapses. She waited at the edge of my driveway, even though I invited her in, toeing a stray weed that had forced its way up through the concrete. I wasn’t much of a gardener. My yard looked unloved. I walked Max back up to the house and opened the door I never locked. I stopped by his water bowl and topped it off under the faucet while he watched me. Max knew my routine with women. I’d take her to dinner, I’d say things about my writing and my passion, then we’d come back here. Before I went back outside, I ran my fingers through my hair, grabbed a piece of Juicy Fruit off the counter, and stepped into the chill. She was gone. It was then I realized that I had never asked her name. I never really told her mine—not my real one, anyway. I carefully unfolded the gum from its wrapper, sticking the yellow strip between my teeth. I pocketed the piece of wax paper, scanning the street for some sign of her. I’d just lost a girl I really wanted to know. It didn’t feel good. Nick’s Book She came back. Two days later. I saw her from my living room window, standing in the same spot I’d left her, staring at my house as if it were something out of a bad dream. The last time I saw her she’d been standing in sunshine, this time it was rain. She had on a white slicker, the rim of it dripping water into her face. I could see the silver streak in her hair plastered to her cheek. I watched her from the window for a few minutes, just to see what she’d do. She seemed rooted to the spot. I decided to go get her. Walking barefoot down my driveway, I sipped my coffee casually, running my tongue over the chip in the rim.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  From the moment I saw him, it was like the beginning of our relationship all over again. Sexual sparks were flying everywhere. He knew the right places to touch me and the perfect words to say. And he used all his tricks until I was like jelly. Incredible! Joyce’s explosive encounter is defined and energized by the push-pull of ambivalence. Her desire to avoid him only intensifies the magnetism of his “tricks.” Yet by the end of the story, her ambivalence is nowhere to be seen. In a burst of passion, ambivalence is transformed. THE CORNERSTONES IN ACTIONNone of the cornerstones is required for sexual arousal. A strong mutual attraction combined with a vital sensuality can, by themselves, create a very satisfying turn-on. But as you have seen, the cornerstones are extremely effective arousal intensifiers. And because excitement is notably heightened in the peak moment, all the features that contribute to our arousal, including any of the cornerstones, are especially visible. You’ve probably noticed that many of The Group’s encounters and fantasies include more than one cornerstone—even though I’ve deliberately selected stories that are relatively pure examples of whichever cornerstone I’m discussing at the time. Three-quarters of The Group’s memorable encounters and fantasies contain at least one cornerstone, and about 40 percent mention two or more. Zack alludes to all cornerstones except ambivalence: There was this girl that I wanted for a year and had often used her as a model during masturbation sessions [longing]. When we finally had sex for the first time it was great. I enjoyed being the aggressor, since I had always been the passive one in my previous sexual relationships. I enjoyed having her submit to me and let me do as I pleased [power]. What really turned me on was seeing her naked and hearing her breathe deeply. We were also in a place that was risky to be fooling around in [naughtiness factor]. I had just about come by the time I had her clothes off. It was extremely arousing when she started touching me. I had always imagined what it would be like and it turned out to be even better. Many people have a particular affinity for just one or two of the cornerstones, while the others are of little interest. In general, those cornerstones that were most consistently a part of your earliest experiences of arousal are likely to be the ones you respond to today. Sometimes, although not always, it is essential to become aware of which cornerstone or cornerstones excite you. I learned this when Alice entered therapy with me because she was tired of acquiescing to sex with Hugh, her husband of nineteen years. Rarely had she felt genuine desire during her marriage. But now an undeniable revulsion was forcing her to stop going through the motions and discover why she was so turned off.

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

  Wanda asked quickly. “For me, too.” “And if I should give you that pleasure,” Wanda exclaimed mockingly. “I shall suffer terrible agonies, but I shall adore you the more,” I replied. “But you would never deceive me, you would have the daemonic greatness of saying to me: I shall love no one but you, but I shall make happy whoever pleases me.” Wanda shook her head. “I don’t like deception, I am honest, but what man exists who can support the burden of truth. Were I say to you: this serene, sensual life, this paganism is my ideal, would you be strong enough to bear it?” “Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose you. I feel how little I really mean to you.” “But Severin—” “But it is so,” said I, “and just for that reason—” “For that reason you would—” she smiled roguishly—“have I guessed it?” “Be your slave!” I exclaimed. “Be your unrestricted property, without a will of my own, of which you could dispose as you wished, and which would therefore never be a burden to you. While you drink life at its fullness, while surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the serene happiness and Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put on and take off your shoes.” “You really aren’t so far from wrong,” replied Wanda, “for only as my slave could you endure my loving others. Furthermore the freedom of enjoyment of the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. It must give one a feeling of like unto a god to see a man kneel before one and tremble. I want a slave, do you hear, Severin?” “Am I not your slave?” “Then listen to me,” said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. “I want to be yours, as long as I love you.” “A month?” “Perhaps, even two.” “And then?” “Then you become my slave.” “And you?” “I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly. “But what does all this mean,” said Wanda, resting her head in both hands with her gaze lost in the distance, “a golden fancy which never can become true.” An uncanny brooding melancholy seemed shed over her entire being; I have never seen her like that. “Why unachievable?” I began. “Because slavery doesn’t exist any longer.” “Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient, to Turkey,” I said eagerly. “You would—Severin—in all seriousness,” Wanda replied. Her eyes burned. “Yes, in all seriousness, I want to be your slave,” I continued. “I want your power over me to be sanctified by law; I want my life to be in your hands, I want nothing that could protect or save me from you. Oh, what a voluptuous joy when once I feel myself entirely dependent upon your absolute will, your whim, at your beck and call.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  The aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible. Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision — a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered. Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult? The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need — the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love. But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting. It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel. As women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of the necessity for reassessing the quality of all the aspects of our lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them. The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros , the personification of love in all its aspects — born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives. There are frequent attempts to equate pornography and eroticism, two diametrically opposed uses of the sexual. Because of these attempts, it has become fashionable to separate the spiritual ( psychic and emotional) from the political, to see them as contradictory or antithetical. “What do you mean, a poetic revolutionary, a meditating gunrunner?” In the same way, we have attempted to separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the spiritual to a world of flattened affect, a world of the ascetic who aspires to feel nothing. But nothing is farther from the truth. For the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the gravest immobility. The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession.

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

  All the sanguinary tyrants that ever occupied a throne; the inquisitors who had the heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered; all the woman whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful, beautiful, and violent women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of Hungary, Queen Margot, Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane, the Russian Czarinas of last century—all these I saw in furs or in robes bordered with ermine.” “And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you,” said Wanda, and simultaneously she began to drape her magnificent fur-cloak coquettishly about her, so that the dark shining sable played beautifully around her bust and arms. “Well, how do you feel now, half broken on the wheel?” Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself down before her, and threw my arms about her. “Yes—you have awakened my dearest dream,” I cried. “It has slept long enough.” “And this is?” She put her hand on my neck. I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the influence of this warm little hand and of her regard, which, tenderly searching, fell upon me through her half-closed lids. “To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom I worship.” “And who on that account maltreats you,” interrupted Wanda, laughing. “Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she gives herself to another.” “And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make a present of you to your successful rival when driven insane by jealousy you must meet him face to face, who will turn you over to his absolute mercy. Why not? This final tableau doesn’t please you so well?” I looked at Wanda frightened. “You surpass my dreams.” “Yes, we women are inventive,” she said, “take heed, when you find your ideal, it might easily happen, that she will treat you more cruelly than you anticipate.” “I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!” I exclaimed, burying my burning face in her lap. “Not I?” exclaimed Wanda, throwing off her furs and moving about the room laughing. She was still laughing as I went downstairs, and when I stood musing in the yard, I still heard her peals of laughter above. * * * * * “Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?” Wanda asked archly, when we met in the park to-day. At first I could find no answer.

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

  She contracted her forehead. “Ah! You are afraid already, or perhaps you regret, but it is too late now. You have sworn, I have your word of honor. But let me hear them.” “First of all I should like to have it included in our contract, that you will never completely leave me, and then that you will never give me over to the mercies of any of your admirers—” “But Severin,” exclaimed Wanda with her voice full of emotion and with tears in her eyes, “how can you imagine that I—and you, a man who loves me so absolutely, who puts himself so entirely in my power—” She halted. “No, no!” I said, covering her hands with kisses. “I don’t fear anything from you that might dishonor me. Forgive me the ugly thought.” Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine, and seemed to reflect. “You have forgotten something,” she whispered coquettishly, “the most important thing!” “A condition?” “Yes, that I must always wear my furs,” exclaimed Wanda. “But I promise you I’ll do that anyhow because they give me a despotic feeling. And I shall be very cruel to you, do you understand?” “Shall I sign the contract?” I asked. “Not yet,” said Wanda. “I shall first add your conditions, and the actual signing won’t occur until the proper time and place.” “In Constantinople?” “No. I have thought things over. What special value would there be in owning a slave where everyone owns slaves. What I want is to have a slave, I alone, here in our civilized sober, Philistine world, and a slave who submits helplessly to my power solely on account of my beauty and personality, not because of law, of property rights, or compulsions. This attracts me. But at any rate we will go to a country where we are not known and where you can appear before the world as my servant without embarrassment. Perhaps to Italy, to Rome or Naples.” * * * * * We were sitting on Wanda’s ottoman. She wore her ermine jacket, her hair was loose and fell like a lion’s mane down her back. She clung to my lips, drawing my soul from my body. My head whirled, my blood began to seethe, my heart beat violently against hers. “I want to be absolutely in your power, Wanda,” I exclaimed suddenly, seized by that frenzy of passion when I can scarcely think clearly or decide freely. “I want to put myself absolutely at your mercy for good or evil without any condition, without any limit to your power.” While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and lay at her feet looking up at her with drunken eyes. “How beautiful you now are,” she exclaimed, “your eyes half-broken in ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away. How wonderful your look would be if you were being beaten to death, in the extreme agony.

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

  One day that we had dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house, there started an indispensable necessity for my mother’s going down to Greenwich to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I certainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I had not the least relish for. The pretext, however, passed, and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had not a male creature in the house. “As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction probably proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the bedclothes, in all the loosest undress.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  A more subtle and indirect approach can still provide a semblance of control for the powerless. Have you ever noticed how submitting to a dominant other sometimes allows you to join or even coopt his or her control? Highly refined surrendering can give “powerless” practitioners nearly total control. Negative examples of this are regularly acted out by “helpless victims” who become tyrants, demanding total compliance and devotion. But indirect routes to power are by no means intrinsically negative. Both children and adults regularly rely on indirect strategies when they must deal with people in dominant positions—a parent, a bully, a teacher, a boss, or maybe even a lover. Your search for power, regardless of which strategies you use, always involves overcoming the obstacles created as opposing wills collide. When actual or fantasized power dynamics intersect with experiences of arousal, as they often do beginning early in our lives, the erotic equation predicts that our responses might well be intensified. Consequently, long before many of us reach adulthood, subtle or dramatic themes of dominance and submission have become established as reliable turn-ons. Twenty-eight percent of The Group’s peak encounters contain obvious references to at least mild dominance or submission or both. The percentages grow dramatically, however, if we consider The Group’s favorite fantasies. Over half of the women (56 percent) and somewhat fewer of the men (44 percent) make clear references to power in their fantasies, a considerable increase for both genders. I was particularly surprised that women are twice as likely to focus on power in their fantasies as in their real-life encounters. Lesbians accentuate this trend, with 83 percent mentioning power dynamics in their fantasies. MAKING THE MOST OF POWERLESSNESSNow is an appropriate time to review again your childhood sexual feelings and fantasies. What were the power relationships between you and the objects of your earliest attractions? When I ask therapy clients about this they frequently remember responding to vague images of dominance and submission in movies or on TV. Most notable are the scenes in which someone is tied up, taken away, or held captive. Similar images are common among The Group’s earliest sexual fantasies. Maria, now middle-aged, explains how a fantasy she first remembers having at age twelve contains elements that still entice her today—longing and surrender in a romantic setting: I am kidnapped by a dark, handsome man. He puts me on a boat and sails us to an island in the tropics. He builds a small bamboo hut and lays out a blanket where he undresses me and then himself. He ties my hands together and gives me oral sex and drives me utterly insane. Afterward we hold each other in the cool breeze.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  What is the meaning of the special appeal that multiple-partner fantasies hold for so many men and women? The ubiquitous imagery of two eager women in male pornography undoubtedly reflects and reinforces men’s interest in three-ways. But what about women? Their most popular form of erotica—the romance novel—virtually never includes multiple partners. With rare exceptions, such as when three people fall in love with one another, multiple partners do not easily fit the romantic ideal. Fantasies involving more than one partner typically have a purely lustful quality. Many factors contribute to the popularity of multiple partners—especially three-ways—among The Group’s fantasies. The fantasizer is virtually always the focal point of such scenarios. The role of both partners is to respond to every whim of the fantasizer and in doing so to affirm his or her irresistability. In addition, the fantasizer is always in control, whether he or she chooses to dominate, to submit, or prefers to watch the partners put on a show as they have sex with each other. I believe the most important attraction of three-ways is their ability to amplify whichever characteristics turn the fantasizer on. Typically, both partners are of the same gender and thus provide a double dose of maleness or femaleness. Consequently, straight women and gay men usually imagine two or more men, whereas straight men and lesbians gravitate toward two women. Not surprisingly, bisexuals sometimes enjoy the presence of both genders, but many prefer to take advantage of the amplification effect by fantasizing about two men or two women, depending on their inclination at the moment. Second only to the popularity of multiple partners in favorite fantasies are very casual or anonymous partners. Among most of the subgroups, regardless of gender, 20 to 24 percent of their favorite fantasies involve sexy strangers or casual, chance meetings. Bisexual men have the most fantasies of anonymous sex (40 percent) and lesbians have the fewest (17 percent). In real-life encounters most women want some link between sex and feelings of emotional connection, as compared with a significant number of men who do not necessarily require or even want such a connection. However, this distinction almost completely disappears in fantasy. It is a dramatic reminder that in the realm of the erotic imagination we are frequently exempt from the values and preferences that guide our actual behavior. In only 12 percent of cases does The Group select fantasy partners with whom they have any real involvement beyond their fantasies, whether as dates, boyfriends or girlfriends, or primary partners. Women, however, are more likely than men to fantasize about partners with whom they’re involved (14 percent and 9 percent respectively). An even greater gender difference appears in regard to being infatuated or in love with their fantasy partners. Women mention feelings of love more than three times more frequently than men (14 percent and 4 percent respectively). And once again, lesbians are the most likely (17 percent) to mention loving their fantasy partners.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  We have never spoken about the kiss we shared when we thought we were dying. He breathes into my mouth as his hands run up the length of my thighs. His hands feel like warm water running across my skin. I cold shiver. My robe is hiked up to the top of my thighs. When his palms leave my legs, I want to cry out, No! I want more of the warmth, but he reaches up and grabs both lapels of my robe, pulling it open and exposing my chest. I’m frozen. Numb. He touches my scars. My barren womanhood. Frozen … frozen … frozen … and then I break open. I gasp and grab his hands, pushing them away. “What are you doing?” He doesn’t answer me. He lifts his hands to my neck. Wherever he touches me there is heat. I roll my head back and his thumbs graze my jaw. “What I want,” he says. I roll my head to the left to try to pull away from him, but he pushes his hand into my hair at the back of my head, and kisses the side of my neck until I’m shivering. He has me at a disadvantage; I’m trying to keep myself upright with one hand and push him away with the other. Eventually, my hand slips out from under me and we collapse on the table. He kisses me. Hard at first—like he’s angry—but when I touch his face he softens. It’s when his lips drag slowly across mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth that I relax. My legs lift off of the table and my feet cradle his waist. Heat; heat on the arches of my feet, heat on my mouth, heat pressed between my legs. He reaches down and pulls my robe open all the way. I lift my arms out of the robe and wrap them around him. Then he rolls me until I’m on top of him. I sit up and he lifts me at the waist until I’m hovering above his erection. He’s right there; the tip is touching me. All I have to do is push down and he will be inside of me. And I want him to be. Because I need to touch and be touched. But Isaac is hesitating. He doesn’t want to let go of my waist. He’s thinking of his wife; I’m thinking of his wife. I’m about to tell him, forget it, when he abruptly releases his hold on my waist. Without him suspending me, and with no warning I slide onto him. I suck air loudly. It’s a gasp if I’ve ever heard one. One minute I’m empty, the next I’m full. A deep, slow panic. He does not belong to me. What am I doing?

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Self-employed, I was guessing. “You’re a writer, too,” I said. She nodded. “So we speak the same language,” I offered. She had a strip of silver running through her brown hair. More proof, it seemed, that she was born for winter. “You’re John Karde,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture. In Barnes and Noble.” “Well, that’s embarrassing.” “Only if I don’t like sappy women’s fiction,” she said. “Which I do.” “Do you write it?” She shook her head, and I swear that sliver of silver glimmered in the dying sun. My nerdy writer mind immediately said mithril. “I’m working on my first real novel. It feels pretty angry.” “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I offered. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I mean, sure she was stunning—but it was more than that. She was a house with no windows. You could go crazy in one of those. I wanted in. She eyed my dog. “I can drop him off, my house is on the way to town.” She paused only to check her watch before nodding. We walked in silence for a few blocks. She kept her head down, choosing the sidewalk over the rest of the world. I wondered if she liked the cracks, or if she just didn’t want to meet the eyes of the people we passed. It might have felt uncomfortable, our quiet walking, but it didn’t. I suspected her to be a woman of few words. Muses often spoke with their eyes and their bodies. The power they supply is electrifying in itself. They set fire to your synapses. She waited at the edge of my driveway, even though I invited her in, toeing a stray weed that had forced its way up through the concrete. I wasn’t much of a gardener. My yard looked unloved. I walked Max back up to the house and opened the door I never locked. I stopped by his water bowl and topped it off under the faucet while he watched me. Max knew my routine with women. I’d take her to dinner, I’d say things about my writing and my passion, then we’d come back here. Before I went back outside, I ran my fingers through my hair, grabbed a piece of Juicy Fruit off the counter, and stepped into the chill. She was gone. It was then I realized that I had never asked her name. I never really told her mine—not my real one, anyway. I carefully unfolded the gum from its wrapper, sticking the yellow strip between my teeth. I pocketed the piece of wax paper, scanning the street for some sign of her. I’d just lost a girl I really wanted to know. It didn’t feel good. Nick’s Book She came back. Two days later.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Like most aspects of erotic life, lusty objectification isn’t so simple. At its best it is an effective source of validation and approval. Having a desired partner perceive you as the object of desire can be flattering and exhilarating. Both men and women—although by no means all—crave opportunities to be responded to as sex objects, and more than a few bemoan the fact that it happens too rarely. And as a society we spend billions of dollars and untold hours trying to make ourselves attractive sexual objects. To objectify is also to externalize, to recognize the desired one as the other—that is, to see clearly that he or she is outside oneself. This quality of otherness is absolutely essential for attraction. Not only is the object separated from the self, but that person is invested with sufficient value to make him or her worthy of pursuit. One of the most beneficial features of lusty objectification is how it facilitates selective perceptions and idealizations. When you lust after someone, you naturally emphasize the qualities you find most appealing. Because lust focuses exclusively on turn-ons and screens out everything else, it’s an extremely effective attraction booster. Even in an established relationship, in which you know and care for your partner as a whole person, look closely, and you’ll probably notice how selectively attending to particular characteristics helps stir your passions when you’re in a sexy mood. Sonya, a thirty-eight-year-old member of The Group, describes how her fantasy life revolves around lusty objectification: I hardly ever have complete fantasy stories like the ones in books. When I want to get hot I just imagine a beautiful set of male buns. I love to scan my eyes from the wide, muscular shoulders, down the v-shaped back, to that sloping transition from back to butt. The very top of the crack thrills me, especially when I catch a glimpse of it at the beach when a hot guy is wearing a skimpy swim suit. A gorgeous set of buns calls out to be caressed by my eyes or fingers. I go nuts over ones with dimple indentations on the sides. At the moment I can’t get enough of my boyfriend’s buns. Like him, they’re perfect! I’m always grabbing him there which he seems to like. When I’m alone and horny I just think of him slowly peeling off his shorts while I watch from behind. Whereas men have always readily described themselves as “tit men,” “leg men,” or the like, only recently have women, like Sonya, allowed themselves to admit to having a focused appreciation for specific physical attributes.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Even as I come across pages of Knotted and hand them to Isaac, it is the nameless book that catches my attention. Each page has a line that pulls at my eyes. I read them, re-read them. No one I know writes this way, yet it is so familiar. I feel a lust for this author’s words. A jealousy at being able to string such rich sentences together. The first line keeps coming back to me with each subsequent line I read. The punishment for her peace was upon him, and he gave her rest. I don’t notice when Isaac disappears from the room to make us food. I smell it when he comes back and hands me a bowl of soup. I set it aside, intent on finishing my work, but he picks it up and places it back in my hands. “Eat it,” he instructs me. I don’t realize how hungry I am until I reluctantly place the spoon in my mouth, sucking the salty brown broth. I set the spoon aside and drink from the bowl, my eyes still scanning the piles set neatly around me. My leg is aching, as is my back, but I don’t want to stop. If I ask Isaac to help me move he will guess at my discomfort and force me to rest. I rub the small of my back when he’s not looking, and press on. “I know what you’re doing,” he says, as he leans over his pile of pages. I look up in surprise. “What?” “When you think I’m not looking, I am.” I flush, and my hand automatically reaches for my aching muscles. I pull back at the last minute and curl my hand into a fist instead. Isaac snickers and shakes his head, turning back to his work. I’m glad he doesn’t press the issue. I pick up another page. It’s my own. The story I wrote for Nick. Instead of putting it on its pile, I read it. True and trite. It was my call to him. The first line of the book went like this: Every time you want to remember what love feels like, you look for me. That line grabbed every woman who had ever offered their throbbing little heart to a man. Because we all have someone who reminds us of what love stings like. That unreliquished love that slips between our fingers like sand. The second line of the book confused them a little. It’s why their eyes kept following my trail of words. I was dropping breadcrumbs for the disaster that was to come. Stay the fuck away from me.