Desire

Passages

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

Page 321 of 344 · 20 per page

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I had never before felt such immediate impact from a man’s touch, much less from a stranger. I didn’t even know his last name. It was New Year’s Eve that day. The redhead suggested to us both that we spend the midnight hour at her house. Still feeling the effects of his electric field, I agreed. I had no other plans. Neither did he. Would it be him? Her? Both? I didn’t know, but I was so willing to find out. And thus fate had her three ways with us. We convened at the redhead’s house at 10:30. Now, this woman knew ambiance like she was born in a harem: red velvet curtains not only on every window but dividing every room; gold fixtures galore; no electric lighting, just candles and incense burning like in a Catholic church; sexy music emanating from unseen speakers; potted palms; naked images of herself in various theatrical guises on the walls; and mirrors, mirrors everywhere—a narcissist’s nirvana. I was learning from this woman already, learning about myself, learning what I liked. After a glass of champagne in crystal flutes at midnight, we ended up on her Persian carpet on some lush pillows watching Fred Astaire in Top Hat. The Young Man had never seen it before. He didn’t see it that night, either. He and I were the first to touch, relinking from earlier that day. As we grasped hand to hand, she watched like a Cheshire cat, and slowly linked herself, too, to me, hands to legs. Before long, they had conspired to remove my clothes, mesmerizing my body with touch. Four hands, two faces, male and female, urgent, loving, sexual, groping, they swept me up in waves of love. Gently, they fought over my pussy; he got there first, but she edged him out. The pleasure was illegal. What’s wrong with girls with girls? Absolutely nothing. But I wanted to come in his mouth, and in my only move, I pulled his face into me. As I gave him all I had and then some, Fred was still twirling in his top hat on the muted black-and-white screen. Then the redhead and I stripped him. He allowed it, willing and erect. She and I gathered like good girlfriends around his cock, which was hard, big, and beautiful. Four hands, two mouths. Every few minutes the Young Man raised his head to look down at the scene of angels praying together over his vertical altar. His eyes rolled back in his head, and with a smile and a groan he fell back into his pleasure. But he never came. She commented on his endurance. He said he’d always been that way. She seemed to know a whole lot about cocks and pussies, and I just sucked it all in. He was one of the blessed, she said, a man who can really take a woman on a ride. I found out later for myself just what kind of ride this could be.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  In an ass, length counts more. Harder to get a long one in, but more profound once there; it feels like it’s knocking on your brain as it invades your soul. In short, when it comes to dick size, width for the pussy, length for the ass is the ideal formula . . . which of course underscores the importance of variety. While, obviously, a big cock is not the whole answer—it could of course be attached to an asshole—it can be your hole’s answer, which is one place to start. Women are taught that size doesn’t matter, that it’s the motion in the ocean. But this is a theory propagated by those bright guys with insecurities who need big theories. The guys who love their dicks are too busy fucking to care. They put their dicks where the others put their theories. Like a good girl, I believed the theory—until I found out I’d been had, not so much by little dicks but by men who thought they had little dicks. I have learned to be careful with a man who doesn’t love his penis. Suspicious of the myriad ways, physical and psychological, that he will compensate. Money, literature, flowers, poetry, promises, proposals, and proficient pussy diving are a few of the camouflages I’ve been subjected to. But it is always, in the end, a case of the emperor’s new clothes, and the insecurity leaks out. Now, there will always be plenty of women who are happy, happier, with the camouflages. So those men needn’t worry—just make sure you get a chick who prefers a real pearl necklace to the washable kind, and a house with a mortgage to your dick in her ass. I’ll admit to penis envy, but only for a big one—if I had one of those, I’d fuck every pretty pussy I could find, nailing each to the cross of her servitude with my big cock. I’d consider it my job, my duty, my destiny. But in the end—in my end, anyway—it is not inches that matter. I have no sense of actual length in my ass, no ruler on my anal walls. I sense size by presence, by pressure, by depth. A-Man is a depth junkie. Of his emotional and spiritual depths I cannot speak with any authority, but I do know that he searches out the depths of my bowels like a demonic Victorian explorer, a gentleman possessed. Like Sir Richard Burton entering Mecca, he is the first Westerner to have infiltrated the tangled jungle of my bowels, my uncharted territory, the heart of my darkness. And he does so with a weapon of singular penetration. #156 He hangs a large gilt mirror in my bedroom and then I suck his cock in front of it, profile, testing the reflection—it proves worthy.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Oh my, oh my, oh my—that feels good. And it looks absolutely beyond porn queen, like the summit of high art—like a Modigliani by Mondrian . To be so framed, positioned, and exposed and then have a lover find his target—well, I could come right now just thinking about it. It seems to me to be, at the very least, respectful to utilize these various crotchless darlings to aid and abet those men whose only object is my clit and whose only reward is my clit. TRINITY If old-fashioned fucking-for-two remained a minefield for me, fucking-for-three continued to be a delight. The Pre-Raphaelite redhead plotted reunions, and we three got together every month or so with unplanned regularity for over a year. I returned to my New Year’s Eve lovers again and again, hungry for love and freedom—a previously impossible duet in my experience. Says Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same . . . then you will enter the kingdom. One day, I ventured down on the Pre-Raphaelite. First time. Terrified. Curious. I wanted to see her pleasure in order to know my own. She was a genuine redhead. Eating pussy when you are a heterosexual woman is overwhelming. To confront a pussy that close for the first time—you can’t ever get that close, at that angle, to your own—is like looking narcissism in the face with a resounding Yes! Profound. Wet. It can sometimes be so hard to be oneself in one’s own sex life. With another woman, a woman’s identity receives a brutal jolt: she is me, I am her, her pleasure is mine, mine is hers. The source, the center, the origin of the human race becomes your only view. I bonded with my own sex and learned to love myself. I also developed a new compassion for the male divers. A pussy is a wild and watery landscape of hills and valleys and ravines and mighty holes that suck one in like quicksand. Once in, you cannot escape. Diving is an act of bravery. The redhead, however, demonstrated less hesitancy, and ate me like a woman who knows how. Naughty, considerate, and relentless. Her fingers felt like tongues, her mouth like a baby’s, sucking. I resist men’s fingers. Too rough, too big, too fast. My shield goes up, my clit hides. My orgasms with her were long, open, and free. The next New Year’s we three reconvened and she had a surprise for us: her beautiful young Belgian friend who was mourning the loss of her rock-star lover. One-two-three-four, three of one and one of the other. She and me and him . . . and her.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He explained still further, but this time I was not convinced. Next game. We examined my ass in the mirror from all angles, and he pointed out every curve and line to explain why it was the best ass—best in the boudoir, anyway. Then we looked at how my shaved pussy lips peeked through my thighs below my ass when I bent over. This was really fun—right out there with it all, shamelessly. So far he hadn’t been allowed to touch me. Lying on my bed, I then asked for a back massage, then a breast and stomach massage, then a butt massage, then a hip and thigh massage. Then I told him to go back to the chair, sit down, take out his cock, and stroke himself while I displayed my pussy to him like a stripper girl on the runway, spread lips, swollen red clit, long lean legs, killer shoes. He got pretty fucking hard. Then I asked that he lick my pussy for a while, taking long strokes from my ass to my pussy to my clit and back again, the whole wet package. That was great. Really just great. Next I asked him to concentrate on rimming my asshole with slowly increasing pressure until his tongue started forcing its way inside: “Like you want it.” “Like?” He did want it. Then he served me four or five inches of a red chili pepper vibrator up my ass. I hadn’t asked for that part, so to speak, but it was hot so I didn’t object. Then followed some straight-on clit licking, for as long as it took while I tried to hold out. During this time I indulged all my fantasies, flipping randomly through my Rolodex. Of A-Man watching this other guy lick me and being amused at my outrageous indulgence, approving, and saying to him: “You keep doing that till she’s had enough, then I’ll fuck her ass.” Then I fantasized that A-Man was licking my clit relentlessly—but that was way too exciting, so I had to stop. Then I imagined all the men I’ve been with, and dumped, in a lineup, outside my bedroom window, watching. I displayed my pleasure and my juice like a whore. On and on with the fantasies until the final one, the finishing one: Reality. This man, for reasons I don’t really understand—could it be love?—is willing to be slave to my orgasm, licking until I have had enough (and enough for me, of course, is a lot).

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Just after Easter Roy gave me the Winchester .22 rifle I’d learned to shoot with. It was a light, pump-action, beautifully balanced piece with a walnut stock black from all its oilings. Roy had carried it when he was a boy and it was still as good as new. Better than new. The action was silky from long use, and the wood of a quality no longer to be found. The gift did not come as a surprise. Roy was stingy, and slow to take a hint, but I’d put him under siege. I had my heart set on that rifle. A weapon was the first condition of self-sufficiency, and of being a real Westerner, and of all acceptable employment—trapping, riding herd, soldiering, law enforcement, and outlawry. I needed that rifle, for itself and for the way it completed me when I held it. My mother said I couldn’t have it. Absolutely not. Roy took the rifle back but promised me he’d bring her around. He could not imagine anyone refusing him anything and treated the refusals he did encounter as perverse and insincere. Normally mute, he became at these times a relentless whiner. He would follow my mother from room to room, emitting one ceaseless note of complaint that was pitched perfectly to jelly her nerves and bring her to a state where she would agree to anything to make it stop. After a few days of this my mother caved in. She said I could have the rifle if, and only if, I promised never to take it out or even touch it except when she and Roy were with me. Okay, I said. Sure. Naturally. But even then she wasn’t satisfied. She plain didn’t like the fact of me owning a rifle. Roy said he had owned several rifles by the time he was my age, but this did not reassure her. She didn’t think I could be trusted with it. Roy said now was the time to find out. For a week or so I kept my promises. But now that the weather had turned warm Roy was usually off somewhere, and eventually, in the dead hours after school when I found myself alone in the apartment, I decided that there couldn’t be any harm in taking the rifle out to clean it. Only to clean it, nothing more. I was sure it would be enough just to break it down, oil it, rub linseed into the stock, polish the octagonal barrel and then hold it up to the light to confirm the

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  Then Florence introduced them, saying: ‘Elizabeth, this here’s my brother I been telling you so much about. He’s a preacher, honey—so we got to be mighty careful what we talk about when he’s around.’ Then he said, with a smile less barbed and ambiguous than his sister’s remark: ‘Ain’t no need to be afraid of me, sister. I ain’t nothing but a poor, weak vessel in the hands of the Lord.’ ‘You see! ’ said Florence, grimly. She took John from his mother’s arms. ‘And this here’s little Johnny,’ she said, ‘shake hands with the preacher, Johnny.’ But John was staring at the door that held back the music; towards which, with an insistence at once furious and feeble, his hands were still outstretched. He looked questioningly, reproachfully, at his mother, who laughed, watching him, and said, ‘Johnny want to hear some more of that music. He like to started dancing when we was coming up the stairs.’ Gabriel laughed, and said, circling around Florence to look into John’s face: ‘Got a man in the Bible, son, who like music, too. He used to play on his harp before the king, and he got to dancing one day before the Lord. You reckon you going to dance for the Lord one of these days?’ John looked with a child’s impenetrable gravity into the preacher’s face, as though he were turning this question over in his mind and would answer when he had thought it out. Gabriel smiled at him, a strange smile—strangely, she thought, loving—and touched him on the crown of the head. ‘He a mighty fine boy,’ said Gabriel. ‘With them big eyes he ought to see everything in the Bible.’ And they all laughed. Florence moved to deposit John in the easy chair that was his Sunday throne. And Elizabeth found that she was watching Gabriel, unable to find in the man before her the brother whom Florence so despised. They sat down at the table, John placed between herself and Florence and opposite Gabriel. ‘So,’ Elizabeth said, with a nervous pleasantness, it being necessary, she felt, to say something, ‘you just getting to this big city? It must seem mighty strange to you.’ His eyes were still on John, whose eyes had not left him. Then he looked again at Elizabeth. She felt that the air between them was beginning to be charged, and she could find no name, or reason, for the secret excitement that moved in her. ‘It’s mighty big,’ he said, ‘and looks to me—and sounds to me—like the Devil’s working every day.’ This was in reference to the music, which had not ceased, but she felt, immediately, that it included her; this, and something else in Gabriel’s eyes, made her look down quickly to her plate. ‘He ain’t,’ said Florence, briskly, ‘working no harder up here than he worked down home. Them niggers down home,’ she said to Elizabeth, ‘they think New York ain’t nothing but one long, Sunday drunk. They don’t know.

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  Here were sinners, come to hear the Word of God. And, indeed, from their apparel the sinfulness of their lives was evident: Esther wore a blue hat, trimmed with many ribbons, and a heavy, wine-red dress; and her mother, massive, and darker than Esther, wore great gold ear-rings in her pierced ears and had that air, vaguely disreputable, and hurriedly dressed, of women he had known in sporting-houses. They sat in the back, rigid and uncomfortable, like sisters of sin, like a living defiance of the drab sanctity of the saints. Deborah turned to look at them, and in that moment Gabriel saw, as though for the first time, how black and how bony was this wife of his, and how wholly undesirable. Deborah looked at him with a watchful silence in her look; he felt the hand that held his Bible begin to sweat and tremble; he thought of the joyless groaning of their marriage bed; and he hated her. Then the pastor rose. While he spoke, Gabriel closed his eyes. He felt the words that he was about to speak fly from him; he felt the power of God go out of him. Then the voice of the pastor ceased, and Gabriel opened his eyes in the silence and found that all eyes were on him. And so he rose and faced the congregation. ‘Dearly beloved in the Lord,’ he began—but her eyes were on him, that strange, that mocking light—‘let us how our heads in prayer.’ And he closed his eyes and bowed his head. His later memory of this sermon was like the memory of a storm. From the moment that he raised his head and looked out over their faces again, his tongue was loosed and he was filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. Yes, the power of the Lord was on him that night, and he preached a sermon that was remembered in camp-meetings and in cabins, and that set a standard for visiting evangelists for a generation to come. Years later, when Esther and Royal and Deborah were dead, and Gabriel was leaving the South, people remembered this sermon and the gaunt, possessed young man who had preached it. He took his text from the eighteenth chapter of the second book of Samuel, the story of the young Ahimaaz who ran too soon to bring the tidings of battle to King David.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  However he sees it, he gets it. Already well fucked, I am now at my most obedient. My will is now about 40 percent depleted, but I am still holding on to my consciousness, to my awareness, and to my high heels. I have much more to give. Much more. I have the power to give, give power. Other lovers never even got 10 percent of what I have to give. They didn’t have the power to ask for it. He does . . . and then he asks for more than that. REAR ENTRY He places me on my left side, two pillows snug under my hip, raising my ass in a fetching little upward sideways arch. I rest my left cheek on the bed, turn my head, and look up to him—it’s always up with him, never down. He grabs one of the tubes of K-Y scattered about the bed. I adore the sound as the top clicks open. Looking at me, he squeezes a gob onto two of his fingers. Looking to my ass, he spreads my cheeks so deliberately I cannot believe my luck. He rubs the gel gently, firmly onto my asshole, into my asshole, rimming the entryway, smoothing the passage. There is the most wondrous look on his face as he does this, alternately gazing in my eyes and gazing to my ass. He slips a finger inside, then two, watching my face, keeping the gaze as I feel his fingers turning inside me, connecting us internally and externally, full circle. Sliding his fingers out, he squeezes more K-Y onto his fingers and rubs it smoothly along the length of his cock, hard as a rock. It’s Time. Holding his cock, he guides it toward the crack in my ass, like a canoe aiming down a narrow ravine. I feel the smooth tip, both hard and velvety on my skin. The center of my asshole, like a magnet, gravitates toward the pressure. We meet. His key to my door, his positive to my negative, his plug to my socket. And the light goes on. Center to center, he nudges, I breathe, he pushes, I release, he pulses, I open, he pushes, he pushes, I open, he plunges in, our eyes lock, and he sends me home. Sometimes he’ll then pull back, and thrust short at the entry for a while, other times he’ll slide inward, downward, slowly, slowly until he is buried in my ass with no cock to spare, only balls outside. He’ll stay there for a moment, not moving. Then he’ll pulse farther. Sometimes he will move me into a different position—on my hands and knees; or standing up while bending over, hands plastered to the wall; or on my back, feet to the ceiling; or, a favorite, legs over my head and ass to the ceiling. Whichever position I’m in, he remains above me, always looking down upon me, watching me, loving me.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Besides, if I didn’t write it all down, no one would ever believe it—least of all me. I didn’t believe it two hours after he left my bed. So I wrote it all down to make it last longer. To make it real. Words seemed the only way to mark the spot, to preserve my transitory experience of eternity. This is a testamentary document. Do not miss the message, distracted by the profanity of the act. I am, you see, a woman who has been in search of surrender my whole life—to find something, someone, to whom I could subsume my ego, my will, my miserable mortality. I tried various religions and various men. I even tried a religious man. And then he found me, the agnostic who demanded my submission. “Bend over,” he’d say, gently, firmly. I can hear it now—echoing in the bowels of my being. Ass-fucking is the great anti-romantic gesture—unless of course, like me, your idea of romance begins on your knees with your face in a pillow. Poetry, flowers, and promises till-death-do-us-part have no place in the backland. Ass-entry involves the hard edge of truth, not the soft folds of sentimentality inherent in romantic love. But butt-fucking is more intimate than pussy-fucking. You risk showing your shit, as metaphor and reality. You let a man into your bowels—your deepest space, the space that all of your life you are taught to ignore, hide, keep quiet about—and consciousness is born. Who needs diamonds, pearls, and furs? Those who’ve never been where I have been. The promised land, the Kingdom. If you can let a man ass-fuck you—and only the truly sensitive lover should have that privilege—you will learn to trust not only him but yourself, totally out of control. And beyond control lies God. Humiliation is my greatest devil, but when the eye of my terror is entered, I experience my fear as unfounded. It is through this physical surrender, this forbidden pathway, that I have found my self, my voice, my spirit, my courage—and the cackle of the crone. This is no feminist treatise about equality. This is the truth about the beauty of submission. The power in submission. To me, you see, I have happened upon the great cosmic joke, God’s supreme irony. Enter the exit. Paradise waits. MY MIRROR, MY MASTER Ballet dancing is learned in front of a mirror.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I asked him just how far could he go sexually before God got mad: “Where is the line?” An hour later, I still hadn’t gotten an answer, just a discernible sigh as his tongue hit my clit on the roof of a nearby car park. He had suggested looking at the view. God was now speaking to me, too, and the time was now and the view superb. And thus, I, too, died and was born again. I have never seen a man before or since look at a pussy the way this guy did. I felt penetrated by his gaze alone. He projected an innocent, open-eyed hunger layered with filthy lust and divine desire. It is forever fixed in my mind’s eye and, easily recalled, can make me come in a jiffy. The risk of being caught in public did wonders for Born Again. One afternoon I sucked his cock in a Denny’s parking lot, just as the lunch crowd of blue-haired ladies was heading for their Pontiacs. He had a great way of staying calm, cool, and on the lookout above while fucking my mouth furiously below. Jekyll and Hyde, sacred and profane, horny man of God. Another time he stuck his hard cock through my vertical mail slot, humping my front door, as I sucked him on the other side while neighbors passed behind him in my courtyard. Perhaps this was a man I could actually date. But shortly afterward he told me that both Darwin and the Dalai Lama were, in general, wrong about most things, and my brief hope for a man who combined the erotic and the spiritual disappeared. When he told me that he didn’t believe in evolution (so I came from a monkey but he didn’t?), I suggested we stop talking entirely and find a nice mail slot through which to communicate. This guy name-dropped God like they were buddies, and his heresies became my self-righteous obsession. Though invited to enter their bliss for a three-way, I simply couldn’t override my own intelligence and do it. Witnessing his religious arrogance in all its shameless glory, however, inspired my own libido to new heights, and every erection became a tangible victory over his troubled piety. Dressed in my red stilettos, fishnet stockings, and a thong, I invited him one night to come into my backyard. Camouflaged in my bushes, he spied through the bedroom window into the candlelight as I pranced, stripped, and touched myself. All was quiet but I could see his hypocrisy harden as his hand moved furiously back and forth on his cock. Was God watching now as my pussy took precedence over Him? I couldn’t have God myself, so I settled for treating Him like the competition. In fact, each time Born Again touched me in public, I felt a kind of religious potency emanating from my pussy. I was angry at Born Again for not being who he thought he was. And who I hoped he was.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Sometimes he’ll speak softly and say, “Get on the bed—on your knees—now pull up your dress.” Then he eats me out, from behind. Other times, he will just take my body and position me where he wants me—crouching on a pillow before him as he feeds me his cock, or flat on my back on the bed while he pinches my nipples through my dress or . . . But whatever happens now, it’s all in slow motion. After a lot of cocksucking, and I mean a lot, he moves me around and grabs a condom and then I know we are about to enter the next stage. Pussy sex is foreplay. Sometimes he skips my pussy altogether and goes straight to my ass, really nasty, only ass—the exit stage. But usually he does pussy first. As he enters me I feel him push up against my cervix, push into my cervix, and it always startles me. I enter the Zone of Release. Sometimes he’ll get so far up there and then start pulsing, with expert little thrusts, pushing my walls outward, upward, further into my being. Every pulse wants more and gets more. This is the beginning of moreness, a state of body longing that craves without cease. The waves of pleasure roll in slowly, then more quickly, but they never stop. Pinnacle after pinnacle, most might deem it the best ever, even transcendent. But he and I are greedy and know where to go for more. There is this amazing moment where love is saturating the room and yet loss is not present. We’re just beginning. Just warming up. After he has had enough pussy (always his choice), he pulls out and situates me—sometimes on Pink Square, sometimes on all fours, sometimes sideways, hip curved upward like a Henry Moore. However he sees it, he gets it. Already well fucked, I am now at my most obedient. My will is now about 40 percent depleted, but I am still holding on to my consciousness, to my awareness, and to my high heels. I have much more to give. Much more. I have the power to give, give power. Other lovers never even got 10 percent of what I have to give. They didn’t have the power to ask for it. He does . . . and then he asks for more than that. REAR ENTRY

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  I got back some chipper official responses encouraging me to start an Annette fan club. In other words, to organize my competition. Fat chance. But when I upped the ante in my letters to her, they stopped sending me anything at all. The Disney Studio must have had a kind of secret service that monitored Mousketeer Mail for inappropriate sentiments and declarations. When my name went off the mailing list, it probably went onto some other list. But Alice had taught me about coyness. I kept writing Annette and began to imagine a terrible accident in front of her house that would almost but not quite kill me, leaving me dependent on her care and sympathy, which in time would turn to admiration, love . . . As soon as she appeared on the show—Hi, I’m Annette!—Taylor would start moaning and Silver would lick the screen with his tongue. “Come here, baby,” he’d say, “I’ve got six inches of piping hot flesh just for you.” We all said things like that—It was a formality—then we shut up and watched the show. Our absorption was complete. We softened. We surrendered. We joined the club. Taylor forgot himself and sucked his thumb, and Silver and I let him get away with it. We watched the Mousketeers get all excited about wholesome projects and have wimpy adventures and talk about their feelings, and we didn’t laugh at them. We didn’t laugh at them when they said nice things about their parents, or when they were polite to each other, or when they said, “Hey, gang . . .” We watched every minute of it, our eyes glistening in the blue light, and we went on staring at the television after they had sung the anthem and faded away into commercials for toothpaste and candy. Then, blinking and awkward, we would rouse ourselves and talk dirty about Annette. Sometimes, when The Mickey Mouse Club was over, we went up to the roof. Silver’s apartment building overlooked California Avenue. Though the street was busy we chose our targets carefully. Most days we didn’t throw anything at all. But now and then someone would appear who had no chance of getting past us, like the man in the Thunderbird. Thunderbirds had been out for only a year now, since ‘55, and because they were new and there weren’t that many of them they were considered somewhat cooler than Corvettes. It was early evening. The Thunderbird was idling before a red light at the intersection, and from our perch behind the parapet we could hear the song on the radio—“Over the Mountains and across the Seas”—and hear too, just below the music, the full-throated purr of the engine. The black body glistened like obsidian. Blue smoke chugged from the twin exhausts. The top was rolled back. We could see the red leather upholstery and the blond man in the dinner jacket sitting in the driver’s seat. He was young and handsome and

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  the other day. Silver never laughed, never gave himself away. When he was being particularly plausible and suave, Taylor and I had to stuff Mrs. Silver’s coverlet in our mouths and flail the mattress with our fists. Then, bumping each other with our hips to make room, the three of us would press together in front of Mrs. Silver’s full-length mirror to comb our hair and practice looking cool. We wore our hair long at the sides, swept back into a ducktail. The hair on top we combed toward the center and then forward, with spit curls breaking over our foreheads. My mother detested this hairdo and forbade me to wear it, which meant that I wore it everywhere but at home, sustaining the distinctness of two different styles with gobs of Butch Wax that left my hair glossy and hard and my forehead ringed with little pimples. Unlit cigarettes dangling from the corners of our mouths, eyelids at half mast, we studied ourselves in the mirror. Spit curls. Pants pulled down low on our hips, thin white belts buckled on the side. Shirts with three-quarterlength sleeves. Collars raised behind our necks. We should have looked cool, but we didn’t. Silver was emaciated. His eyes bulged, his Adam’s apple protruded, his arms poked out of his sleeves like pencils with gloves stuck on the ends. Taylor had the liquid eyes and long lashes and broad blank face of a cow. I didn’t look that great myself. But it wasn’t really our looks that made us uncool. Coolness did not demand anything as obvious as that. Like chess or music, coolness claimed its own out of some mysterious impulse of recognition. Uncoolness did likewise. We had been claimed by uncoolness. At five o’clock we turned on the television and watched The Mickey Mouse Club. It was understood that we were all holding a giant bone for Annette. This was our excuse for watching the show, and for me it was partly true. I had certain ideas of the greater world that Annette belonged to, and I wanted a place in this world. I wanted it with all the feverish, disabling hunger of first love. At the end of every show the local station gave an address for Mousketeer Mail. I had begun writing Annette. At first I described myself in pretty much the same terms as I had in my letters to Alice, who was now very much past tense, with the difference that instead of owning a ranch my father, Cap’n Wolff, now owned a fleet of fishing boats. I was first mate, myself, and a pretty fair hand at reeling in the big ones. I gave Annette some very detailed descriptions of my contests with the friskier fellows I ran up against. I also invited her to consider the fun to be had in visiting Seattle. I told her we had lots of room. I did not tell her that I was eleven years old.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  We ask about Paul’s death. How, where, and when did he die? All we can offer in reply is educated guesswork, but we will guess as closely as we can to historical probability. We begin with the last words we have from Paul himself. TO PRESERVE CHRISTIAN UNITY As we saw in Chapter 2, Paul ended his letter to the Romans by greeting twenty-seven individuals there known to him either by contact or reputation. It is not at all unusual for him to end his letters with farewell greetings, but most are kept very general and individuals are not named. For example: “Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss” (1 Thess. 5:26), and “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (2 Cor. 13:12). It is possible that Romans 16 is so different and detailed because Paul is inviting those Christian individuals to assist him as he journeys westward to Spain. But it also possible that he has premonitions that this letter might be, as it actually was, his last will and testament. That shows up at the end of Romans 15 as Paul tells them about his plans to visit them: I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you when I go to Spain. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while…. I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. (15:23–24, 28–29) But he continues by noting that, before passing through Rome to Spain and the west, he has a very special and important mission to accomplish in the east: I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  With regard to practice and the groups’ own situation, Paul is equally clear. Speaking to both, he says, “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them” (14:3). The common basis for unity even in that disagreement is this: Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. (14:5–6) Therefore, he insists, the weak should not “pass judgment” on the strong, nor the strong “despise” the weak (14:4, 10, 13). While speaking to the weak, Paul never asks, advises, or commands them to abandon their kosher and calendar observances. Indeed, all he ever says to them is not “to pass judgment” on the strong (14:3, 4, 10, 13). Paul spends the most time speaking to the strong. He tells them repeatedly and emphatically, “If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died” (14:15; also read 14:20–21; 15:1). If, in other words, kosher and calendar observances are not important for you, then neither is their negation. If all food is good, then so is kosher food. If every day is good, then so is the Sabbath. The strong ones are to adjust, get over it, grow up, “for the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). Paul asks each group to accept the other’s religious differences, so that they can worship together and share the Lord’s Supper (15:6–7). But he also insists that both observance and nonobservance must proceed from faith and not from, say, discrimination, contempt, or judgment (read 14:22–23). From Antioch to Rome. Recall, from Chapter 3, that bitter dispute between Paul, on the one side, and James, Peter, and “even Barnabas,” on the other (Gal. 2:1–14). At the end of the 40s CE, Paul, as we saw there, argued—and lost—against them all at Antioch over exactly that same subject as here in Rome. Was the eucharistic meal for a mixed community of Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles to be kosher for all or kosher for none? The earlier decision there was kosher for none, but James of Jerusalem, brother of Jesus, demanded that it be changed to ko sher for all. All the leaders agreed except Paul, who even called Peter a “hypocrite” for reversing his position.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  Finally, “many other women” left their husbands, and husbands their wives, in the name of sexual purity. With so many marriage beds abandoned, Peter has put Rome in an epic stir of erotic frustration. Peter sneaks out of the city in disguise but, in a touching scene, encounters Christ and famously asks him, “Whither goest thou?” Peter marches back through the gates to his certain death. The apostle’s preaching on sexual chastity is the proximate cause of the most famous scene in apocryphal literature and the most hallowed martyrdom in Christian history (save one). 32 In the Acts of Peter, the “word of purity” that leads to the apostle’s death is abrupt and almost mechanical in its exaggerated predictability. In the Acts of Thomas, the pattern of events is identical, although the drama is more elaborately developed. To the figure of Thomas stuck the most exotic legends of the early church. His Acts describe his mission to India, where he converts an aristocratic woman, Mygdonia, to the gospel. He teaches her that “the reputation that comes from your high rank, the authority of this world, and the disgusting intercourse with your husband will avail you not at all if you are without the union of truth … for the union that brings the production of children passes away, and is even worthy of contempt.” Her husband, close kin to the king, is predictably befuddled by her newfound commitment to sexual abstention, not to mention the truculence with which she disobeys him. “I am your husband from the time of your virginity, by the gods and by the laws given the right to rule over you.” Thomas is arrested, but his arraignment only provides a platform to spread the message that salvation comes to those who are “delivered from all bodily pleasures.” The king’s efforts backfire when his own wife, then his son and heir, take up chastity. The king has Thomas killed. As a postscript to his martyrdom, we are told that the king and his relative Charisius “tried very much to force their wives” but “could not persuade them to abandon their will.” 33 Whatever else may be said of them, the sexual doctrines presented by the heroes of apostolic legend are consistently extreme. Thomas denigrates married intercourse as “filthy,” and he leaves no room for ambiguity. In the Acts of Andrew, the apostle’s primary convert, Maximilla, calls sex with her husband a “defiling intercourse.” When Peter preaches the “word of purity,” it is a gospel of complete continence. The Acts of Paul have the great missionary coming into the city of Iconium proclaiming, “Blessed are those who refrain from sex altogether, for God will speak to them.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  The historian of eros most of all must remember that talk is merely talk, and that no moral ideology can control such quixotic, individual, human forces as shame or desire. We are not positing, nor would it be possible to posit, a sea change in human behavior. But it is worth risking the obvious dangers of overstatement, if the opposite tendency, of failing to emerge from the thicket of Christian disagreements, threatens to obscure the truth that the Theodosian generations witnessed one of the great revolutions in the history of public sexual morality. Perhaps it would be safer to hedge bets and call the transition of these years an inflection point in a longer, slower, and highly circumstantial passage from classical to Christian values. In the case of same-sex eros, ideals of marriage, and concepts of sexual agency alike, the victory of Christianity drove an epochal reorganization of the substance of sexual morality and its place in the order of the ancient city. As Chapter 4 will show, imaginative literature was called upon to represent this new order of relationships between individual, society, and cosmos, and it was particularly suited for doing so. From Shame to Sin CHAPTER FOUR Revolutionizing Romance in the Late Classical World From Shame to Sin SELF, SOCIETY, AND LITERARY SYMBOLS In the days leading up to his execution, with confrontation hanging over the atmosphere like a leaden sky, Jesus relayed to the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem the startling message that they would be preceded into the kingdom of heaven by tax-collectors and prostitutes. The charismatic Galilean rabbi had earned a reputation for his charitable attitude toward society’s outcasts, and it was known on solid authority that he went so far as to share a table with them. Almost four centuries later the radical benevolence of Jesus had lost none of its original charge, in part because he had chosen his outcasts so well. In the words of the Antiochene preacher John Chrysostom, “These two represent the highest sins, born each of a grievous passion, lust for the body and lust for coin.” God, in the dispensation of forgiveness, was not a respecter of persons, and nothing symbolized the limitless potential of grace like the moral rehabilitation of a prostitute. Because of her penitence, there was hope for all. She proved that “it is easy to rise from the very depths of wickedness.” But John Chrysostom did not have to rely on ancient scriptures to find an example of such extraordinary transformation. Have you not heard how that prostitute, who once surpassed all in her wanton immorality, now overshadows all in her moral scruple? I am not talking about the prostitute in the gospels, but the one in our own time, hailing from the most lawless city of Phoenicia.

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  [image file=images/image_272.jpg] Wildlife biologist Lindsey thought attending a fan convention with her new boyfriend Ben was a great idea—until their relationship imploded. Lindsey still lusts after her ex—but if he wants her, he’s going to have to prove he can give her what she needs. Ben will do anything to win Lindsey back, and when he sees her in her skimpy black vinyl convention getup, he realizes what she’s been craving all along. And he’s inspired to finally give in to his own dark desire to take complete sexual control... Lindsey is surprised by her reaction to Ben’s kinky new seduction techniques, and suddenly sees the brilliant but boring code guru in a different light. After several erotic encounters in hotel rooms and stairwells, she’s falling for him all over again. And wondering if the intimate connection will last once they head home... Connect with us for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers and much more! Visit CarinaPress.com We like you—why not like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/CarinaPress Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/CarinaPress About the Author Delphine tried unsuccessfully to get past being an English major by becoming a lawyer, a special-education teacher and an educational diagnostician. She finally gave up the fight several years ago and began writing full-time. Her first Carina Press release, The Theory of Attraction, won the 2013 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for best erotic ebook novella. When not writing or doing “mommy stuff,” Delphine reads voraciously and noodles around with web design. She counts herself fortunate to have two absurdly precocious children, and two delightful, if occasionally disobedient, mutts. Delphine and her family are all Texas natives, and reside in unapologetic suburban bliss near Houston. [image file=images/CarinaLogo_4c_fmt1.jpg] Where no great story goes untold. The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write. With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away! Keep in touch with Carina Press: Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress [image file=images/New_Carina_Logo_fmt.jpg] ISBN-13: 9781426897627 THE PRINCIPLE OF DESIRE Copyright © 2013 by Delphine Dryden Edited by Deborah Nemeth All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries. www.CarinaPress.com

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Understanding male libidoA healthy and active libido is as integral to a satisfying sex life for a man as it is for a woman. Lifestyle factors such as stress, sleep, nutrition, and exercise affect his sex drive as they do yours. His libido is also a direct result of the emotional bond between you, so taking care of your sex life will reflect positively on other aspects of his life, including his career, relationship, and self-esteem. Emotional obstaclesIf you and your partner are having relationship woes, don’t be surprised if the tension transfers to the bedroom. We may think men are superheroes who don’t cry, but they, too, are affected by perceived slights and relationship difficulties. Don’t ignore conflicts at home, which can lead to feelings of low self-esteem or inadequacy that inevitably affect his—and your—libido. If you strive to resolve emotional difficulties quickly, your sex life and relationship will benefit. Lifestyle obstaclesMale libido, like female libido, is also subject to the effects of stress. Not surprisingly, too much stress makes a man feel run down and uninterested in sex. Quite often, stress also causes men to sleep less and to eat fatty, libido-killing foods, which may lead to weight gain and a diminished sex drive. Medication can affect a man’s sex drive, just as it affects a woman’s. Sedatives, antidepressants, antihistamines, antihypertensives, and cancer-fighting medication can all have an effect. Fortunately, there are prescriptions available that won’t have as much of an impact on his libido. Libido should not have to be sacrificed for good health—the two should go hand-in-hand. Supplements and herbal remediesAnother way for your partner to keep his libido on track is with supplements and herbal remedies. Zinc is beneficial to his fertility, and L-arginine is said to increase blood flow to the genital region, which might help to improve his erectile ability. Epimedium (nicknamed “horny goat weed”) can help regulate cortisol levels and boost libido in men and women alike. Gingko can help increase blood flow, which helps erectile difficulties, while ginseng enhances stamina and well-being. Before beginning any herbal regimen, your partner should consult his doctor. Intimate relaxationYou don’t have to be in bed to enhance your emotional connection. You can be at the gym, at the movies, in a restaurant. Spend time together at home, being close and intimate. Often, it is when you are both relaxed that he is most interested in sex. These are the times when he can connect with you, and that connection will strengthen his libido.

• From Cultish (2021)

  They filled women’s ears with promises of financial independence, the sort that wouldn’t threaten their traditionally feminine, wifely image. To this day, unemployed women, especially those living in blue-collar towns, continue to make up the majority of MLM recruits. Quickly, the direct selling industry figured out how to target other communities locked out of the dignified labor market. Immigrant Spanish speakers, inexperienced college students, and economically marginalized Black folks became additional targets. The industry takes advantage of the trust that already exists within tight-knit groups like churches, military bases, and college campuses. Their ideal recruit is one who is striving for financial stability and has a proven track record of faith and optimism, whether it’s hope for a fresh start in a new country, youthful enthusiasm for the future, or belief in a higher power. The typical MLM joinee isn’t some greedy jerk looking to get rich quick; they’re an everyday person looking to pay their basic bills. A blend of monetary struggle, close community, and idealism is the jackpot for any upline. Christian communities wind up being a hotbed for MLMs, many of which actively identify themselves as “faith-based”: Mary & Martha, Christian Bling, Younique, Thirty-One Gifts, and Mary Kay are just a few of the many MLMs that lead with an explicitly religious credo. In dozens of American neighborhoods, you’ll find salt-of-the-earth people holding the Bible in one hand and pricey lotion samples in the other. It’s why the state of Utah is home to more MLM headquarters than anywhere else in the world—Mormons, as direct sales leaders have discovered, are an ideal sales forc e. “Latter-day Saints are born and bred to be missionaries . . . so preaching the gospel to friends often naturally flows with selling MLM products to their friends,” a source told the investigative podcast The Dream . “When your uncle comes to you and says, ‘I have this great life-changing opportunity,’ sometimes it sounds a lot like a message you would hear at church.” Religion has been intertwined with MLMs—and with American labor culture in general—since before the United States even existed. The marriage of godly blessings and monetary “blessings” goes back half a millennium to the Protestant Reformation. Sociologists attribute the dawn of modern capitalism to this sixteenth-century movement, which gave birth to so many of our contemporary American workplace values, like the basic idea of “a good day’s work,” “keeping your nose to the grindstone,”* and “the good paymaster is lord of another man’s purse.” Protestant Reformers, especially French theologian John Calvin, conceived of the idea that God plays a role not just in human beings’ spiritual successes and failures but also in our financial ones. This idea helped create the “Protestant ethic,” marked by diligent work, individual effort, and accumulation of wealth, which aligned perfectly with Europe’s emerging capitalist economy. Soon, everyone began aspiring to the new ideal of a pious, self-reliant entrepreneur.