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 Little Birds (1979)

  Then he got up, flung his pencil on the table, leaned over me and kissed me fully on the mouth, forcing my head backwards. I pushed him off violently. This made him smile. He slipped his hand swiftly up under my skirt, felt my thighs where the stockings stopped and before I could move was back in his seat. I took the pose and said nothing, because I had just made a discovery—that in spite of my anger, in spite of the fact that I was not in love, the kiss and the caress on the naked thighs had given me pleasure. While I fought him off, it was only out of a habit, but actually it had given me pleasure. The pose gave me time to awaken from the pleasure and remember my defenses. But my defenses had been convincing and he was quiet for the rest of the morning. From the very first I had divined that what I really had to defend myself against was my own susceptibility to caresses. I was also filled with great curiosities about so many things. At the same time I was utterly convinced that I would not give myself to anyone but the man I fell in love with. I was in love with Stephen. I wanted to go to him and say: “Take me, take me!” I suddenly remembered another incident, and that was a year before this when one of my aunts had taken me to New Orleans to the Mardi Gras. Friends of hers had driven us in their automobile. There were two other young girls with us. A band of young men took advantage of the confusion, the noise, the excitement and gaiety to jump into our automobile, remove our masks and begin kissing us while my aunt raised an outcry. Then they disappeared into the crowd. I was left dazed and wishing that the young man who had taken hold of me and had kissed me on the mouth were still there. I was languid from the kiss, languid and stirred. Back at the club I wondered what all the rest of the models felt. There was a great deal of talk about defending oneself, and I wondered whether it was all sincere. One of the loveliest models, whose face was not particularly beautiful but who had a magnificent body, was talking:

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Next night, when the same opportunity presented itself, I changed my petition, ‘If I can feel him all over with a wanton hand,’ I vowed, ‘and he not know it, I will give him two of the gamest fighting-cocks, for his silence.’ The lad nestled closer to me of his own accord, on hearing this offer, and I truly believe that he was afraid that I was asleep. I made short work of his apprehensions on that score, however, by stroking and fondling his whole body. I worked myself into a passionate fervor that was just short of supreme gratification. Then, when day dawned, I made him happy with what I had promised him. When the third night gave me my chance, I bent close to the ear of the rascal, who pretended to be asleep. ‘Immortal gods,’ I whispered, ‘if I can take full and complete satisfaction of my love, from this sleeping beauty, I will tomorrow present him with the best Macedonian pacer in the market, in return for this bliss, provided that he does not know it.’ Never had the lad slept so soundly! First I filled my hands with his snowy breasts, then I pressed a clinging kiss upon his mouth, but I finally focused all my energies upon one supreme delight! Early in the morning, he sat up in bed, awaiting my usual gift. It is much easier to buy doves and game-cocks than it is to buy a pacer, as you know, and aside from that, I was also afraid that so valuable a present might render my motive subject to suspicion, so, after strolling around for some hours, I returned to the house, and gave the lad nothing at all except a kiss. He looked all around, threw his arms about my neck. ‘Tell me, master,’ he cried, ‘where’s the pacer?’ [‘The difficulty of getting one fine enough has compelled me to defer the fulfillment of my promise,’ I replied, ‘but I will make it good in a few days.’ The lad easily understood the true meaning of my answer, and his countenance betrayed his secret resentment.)” CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  I did not know how I could pose for him. But he was thinking of another picture. He said, “It will be easy. I want you to fall asleep. But you will be wrapped in white sheets. I saw something in Morocco once that I always wanted to paint. A woman had fallen asleep among her silk spools, holding the silk weaving frame with her hennaed feet. You have beautiful eyes, but they’ll have to be closed.” He went into the cabin and brought out sheets which he draped around me like a robe. He propped me against a wooden box, arranged my body and hands as he wanted them and began to sketch immediately. It was a very hot day. The sheets made me warm, and the pose was so lazy that I actually fell asleep, I don’t know for how long. I felt languid and unreal. And then I felt a soft hand between my legs, very soft, caressing me so lightly I had to awaken to make sure I had been touched. Reynolds was bending over me, but with such an expression of delighted gentleness that I did not move. His eyes were tender, his mouth half open. “Only a caress,” he said, “just a caress.” I did not move. I had never felt anything like this hand softly, softly caressing the skin between my legs without touching my sex. He only touched the tips of my pubic hair. Then his hand slipped down to the little valley around the sex. I was growing lax and soft. He leaned over and put his mouth on mine, lightly touching my lips, until my own mouth responded, and only then did he touch the tip of my tongue with his. His hand was moving, exploring, but so softly, it was tantalizing. I was wet, and I knew if he moved just a little more he would feel this. The languor spread all through my body. Each time his tongue touched mine I felt as if there were another little tongue inside of me, flicking out, wanting to be touched too. His hand moved only around my sex, and then around my ass, and it was as if he magnetized the blood to follow the movements of his hands. His finger touched the clitoris so gently, then slipped between the lips of the vulva. He felt the wetness. He touched this with delight, kissing me, lying over me now, and I did not move. The warmth, the smells of plants around me, his mouth over mine affected me like a drug. “Only a caress,” he repeated gently, his finger moving around my clitoris until the little mound swelled and hardened. Then I felt as if a seed were bursting in me, a joy that made me palpitate under his fingers. I kissed him with gratitude. He was smiling. He said, “Do you want to caress me?”

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Novalis noticed that when she took these pills she did not hear him get up, move about, or even spill objects in the room. One morning he awakened early, with the intention of working, and watched her sleep, so deeply that she rarely stirred at all. A strange idea occurred to him. He drew back the sheets that covered her, and slowly began to lift up her silk nightgown. He was able to raise it above her breasts without her giving any sign of awakening. Now her whole body lay exposed and he could contemplate it as long as he wanted. Her arms were flung outwards; her breasts lay under his eyes like an offering. He was roused with desire for her but still did not dare touch her. Instead he brought his drawing paper and pencils, sat at her side and sketched her. As he worked, he had the feeling that he was caressing each perfect line in her body. He was able to continue for two hours. When he observed the effect of the sleeping pills beginning to wear off, he pulled down the nightgown, covered her with the sheet and left the room. Later, María was surprised to notice a new enthusiasm for work in her husband. He locked himself in his studio for whole days, painting from the pencil sketches he made in the mornings. In this way he completed several paintings of her, always reclining, always asleep, as she had been the first day she posed. María was amazed by this obsession. She thought it was merely a repetition of the first pose. He always altered the face. Since her actual expression was forbidding and severe, no one who saw these paintings ever imagined that the voluptuous body was that of María. Novalis no longer desired his wife when she was awake, with her puritanical expression and stern eyes. He desired her when she was asleep, abandoned, rich and soft. He painted her without respite. When he was alone with a new painting in his studio he lay on the couch in front of it, and then a warmth ran through his whole body, as his eyes rested on the maja’s breasts, on the valley of her belly, on the hair between her legs. He began to feel an erection stirring. He was surprised at the violent effect of the painting. One morning he stood in front of María as she lay sleeping. He had succeeded in parting her legs slightly, so as to see the line between them. Watching her unconstrained pose, her opened legs, he fingered his sex with the illusion that she was doing it. How often he had led her hand to his penis, trying to obtain this caress from her, but she was always repulsed and moved her hand away. Now he enclosed his penis fully in his own strong hand.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “I have known other sexual angels. It is wonderful to see the change in them. These clear eyes that you can see through, these bodies that take such beautiful harmonious poses, these delicate hands . . . how they change when desire takes hold of them. The sexual angels! They are wonderful because it is such a surprise, such a change. You, for instance, with your appearance of never having been touched, I can see you biting and scratching . . . I am sure your very voice changes—I have seen such changes. There are women’s voices that sound like poetic, unearthly echoes. Then they change. The eyes change. I believe that all these legends about people changing into animals at night—like the stories of the werewolf, for instance—were invented by men who saw women transform at night from idealized, worshipful creatures into animals and thought that they were possessed. But I know it is something much simpler than that. You are a virgin, aren’t you?” “No, I am married,” I said. “Married or not, you are a virgin. I can tell. I am never deceived. If you are married your husband has not made you a woman yet. Don’t you regret that? Don’t you feel you are wasting time, that real living only begins with sensation, with being a woman . . . ?” This corresponded so exactly to what I had been feeling, to my desire to enter experience, that I was silent. I hated to admit this to a stranger. I was conscious of being alone with the illustrator in an empty studio building. I was sad that Stephen had not understood my desire to become a woman. I was not frightened but fatalistic, desiring only to find someone I might fall in love with. “I know what you are thinking,” he said, “but for me it would not have any meaning unless the woman wanted me. I never could make love to a woman if she did not want me. When I first saw you, I felt how wonderful it would be to initiate you. There is something about you that makes me feel you will have many love affairs. I would like to be the first one. But not unless you wanted it.” I smiled. “That is exactly what I was thinking. It can only be if I want it, and I do not want it.”

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  But as soon as I cuddled up to Carla’s back and got myself all contoured and warmed, I fell right to sleep and slept like an old tree till morning. XVIIThe phone rings me out of my reverie. It’s junior high and Otto and I are in Belle’s basement watching her big brother and his friends take turns violating her body. She loves it. They invite us to join in, but we’re too embarrassed and scared her mom will come home. We leave and run over to Otto’s and flog our dummies raw. I have a superturgid boner and it hurts to sprint upstairs. I catch the phone on about the zillionth ring. It’s Dad waking me for the match. I like to take naps before a match if I can. For some reason they can be absolutely subterranean, so I like to make sure someone wakes me. No doubt I’m riddled with subconscious fears. Dad wishes me good luck and asks again if I want him to come to the match. I tell him no, that this one won’t be much to see, but to be sure to take off early next Tuesday night for the Shute match. He says he won’t forget. Back downstairs the bed’s all warm still. Belle was probably the world’s most beautiful and licentiously precocious seventh-grader. She really doesn’t look much older now, except that the rest of her body has filled out to match her tits. Her legs are like the legs of a racehorse, long, smooth-muscled, and precisely defined. In seventh grade she was mostly legs and tits and long pigtails. I find it strange that even though I could not ask for more or better sex, I still fantasize about other girls. Even sometimes when Carla and I are making love I’ll think of Belle. I’ll think of coming on her tits, which her brother and his friends did to her great delight. She’d rub it all over with her hands—like suntan lotion. Once when we were making love, I imagined Mrs. Brockington, my history teacher, fucking a horse. I think it was because she had shown us a movie about the potentially future-shocking effects of artificial insemination, or maybe that was the time Tanneran told us about the death of Catherine the Great. There’s almost nothing sexually imaginable Carla is not up for. I guess we could shit on each other or something like that, but we don’t. So I don’t figure I’m sexually frustrated. I guess maybe I just have a lot of energy that works itself out through my cock. I think of Belle’s nipples all pumped up and brown, of Mrs. Brockington bending over her desk with a horse mounted behind, of Romaine Lewis about to introduce his cock to Carla’s lips, of Lemon Pie’s pictures of the dick-licking boys, of Mom. Weird.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  He studied me from every side. Then he came up to me and said, “When I made the drawing, this part of the body showed clearly, here, between the legs.” He touched me lightly as if it were merely part of his work. I curved in my belly a little to throw the hips forward and then he said, “Now it is fine. Hold it.” He began to sketch. As I sat there I realized that there was one uncommon detail about the saddle. Most saddles, of course, are shaped to follow the contour of the ass and then rise at the pommel, where they are apt to rub against a woman’s sex. I had often experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of being supported there. Once my garter came loose from the stocking and began to dance around inside my riding trousers. My companions were galloping and I did not want to fall behind, so I continued. The garter, leaping in all directions, finally fell between my sex and the saddle and hurt me. I held on, gritting my teeth. The pain was strangely mixed with a sensation I could not define. I was a girl then and did not know anything about sex. I thought that a woman’s sex was inside of her, and I did not know about the clitoris. When the ride was over I was in pain. I mentioned what had happened to a girl I knew well and we both went into the bathroom. She helped me out of my trousers, out of my little belt with the garters on it, and then said, “Are you hurt? That’s a very sensitive spot. Maybe you’ll never have any pleasure there if you got hurt.” I let her look at it. It was red and a little swollen, but not so very painful. What bothered me was her saying I might be deprived of a pleasure by this, a pleasure I did not know. She insisted on bathing it with a wet cotton, fondled me and finally kissed me, “to make it well.” I became acutely aware of this part of my body. Particularly when we rode a long while in the heat, I felt such a warmth and stirring between my legs that all I desired was to get off the horse and let my friend nurse me again. She was always asking me, “Does it hurt?” So once I answered, “Just a little.” We dismounted and went into the bathroom, and she bathed the chafed spot with cotton and cool water. And again she fondled me, saying, “But it does not look sore anymore. Maybe you will be able to enjoy yourself again.” “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you think it has gone . . . dead . . . from the pain?” My friend very tenderly leaned over and touched me. “Does it hurt?” I lay back and said, “No, I do not feel anything.”

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Donald had left. He waited in the bathroom and looked into the mirror of the door. He saw Dorothy standing by John, her breasts in her hands. The fur had opened to reveal her whole body, glowing, luminous, rich in the fur, like some jeweled animal. Donald was stirred. John did not touch the body, he suckled at the breasts, sometimes stopping to feel the fur with his mouth, as if he were kissing a beautiful animal. The odor of her sex—pungent shell and sea odors, as if woman came out of the sea as Venus did—mixed with the odor of the fur, and John’s suckling grew more violent. Seeing Dorothy in the mirror, seeing the hair of her sex like the hair of the fur, Donald felt that if John touched her between the legs he would strike him. He came out of the bathroom, his penis exposed and erect, and walked towards Dorothy. This was so much like the first scene of her passion for Robert that she moaned with joy, tore herself from John and turned fully upon Donald, saying: “Take me, take me!” Closing her eyes, she imagined Robert crouching over her, tigerlike, tearing open the fur, and caressing her with many hands and mouths and tongues, touching every part of her, parting her legs, kissing her, biting her, licking her. She incited the two men to a frenzy. Nothing was heard but the breathing, the little suckling sounds, the sound of the penis swimming in her moisture. Leaving them both drowsy, she dressed and went so quickly that they barely were aware of it. Donald cursed: “She couldn’t wait. She couldn’t wait, she had to go back to him just as before. All wet and juicy from other men’s lovemaking.” It was true that Dorothy did not wash. When Robert arrived home a few moments after her, she was filled with rich odors, open, vibrating still. Her eyes, her gestures, her languid pose on the couch invited him. Robert knew her moods. He was quick to respond to them. He was so happy that she was as she had been long ago. She would be moist between the legs now, responsive. He plunged into her. Robert was never quite certain of when she was coming. The penis is rarely aware of this spasm in woman, this little palpitation. The penis can feel only its own ejaculation. This time Robert wanted to feel the spasm in Dorothy, the wild little clutching. He withheld his orgasm. She was convulsed. The moment seemed to have come. He forgot his watching in his own wave of pleasure. And Dorothy carried off her deception, unable to reach the orgasm that she had had only an hour before while closing her eyes and pretending it was Robert who was taking her.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  As Laura continued to look at the woman, she opened her legs. Something touched her hips just as the woman’s hips were touched by the stiffened sex of the dog, and she felt as if the dogs were coupling right over her. Jan saw that she was not feeling him but the picture. He shook her with anger, and, as if to punish her he took her with such long, lasting, stubborn emphasis that until she cried to be delivered he did not stop ploughing her. By that time neither one was looking at the ceiling. They were tangled in the bedclothes, half-covered, legs and heads entwined. Thus they fell asleep, and the paints dried on the palette. SaffronFay had been born in New Orleans. When she was sixteen she was courted by a man of forty whom she had always liked for his aristocracy and distinction. Fay was poor. Albert’s visits were events to her family. For him their poverty was hastily disguised. He came very much like the liberator, talking about a life Fay had never known, at the other end of the city. When they were married, Fay was installed like a princess in his house, which was hidden in an immense park. Handsome colored women waited on her. Albert treated her with extreme delicacy. The first night he did not take her. He maintained that this was proof of love, not to force oneself upon one’s wife, but to woo her slowly and lingeringly, until she was prepared and in the mood to be possessed. He came to her room and merely caressed her. They lay enveloped in the white mosquito netting as within a bridal veil, lay back in the hot night fondling and kissing. Fay felt languid and drugged. He was giving birth to a new woman with every kiss, exposing a new sensibility. Afterwards, when he left her, she lay tossing and unable to sleep. It was as if he had started tiny fires under her skin, tiny currents which kept her awake. She was exquisitely tormented in this manner for several nights. Being inexperienced, she did not try to bring about a complete embrace. She yielded to this profusion of kisses in her hair, on her neck, shoulders, arms, back, legs . . . Albert took delight in kissing her until she moaned, as if he were now sure of having awakened a particular part of her flesh, and then his mouth moved on.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Soon after, he went to Paris to meet Dorothy. She continued to see Donald, too. Then she and Robert went on a trip. That week together, they thought they were going to go crazy. Robert’s caresses put Dorothy in such a state that she begged “Take me!” He would pretend to refuse, just to see her rolling in exquisite torture, on the verge of an orgasm and needing him only to touch her with the tip of his penis. Then she learned to tease him, too, to leave him when he was about to come. She would pretend to fall asleep. And he would lie there, tortured by the desire to be touched again, afraid to awaken her. He would edge close to her, place his penis against her ass, trying to move against it, to come just by touching her, but he couldn’t, and then she would awaken and begin touching him and sucking him again. They did it so often that it became a torture. Her face was swollen from the kissing, and she had marks of his teeth on her body, and yet they could not touch each other in the street, even while walking, without jumping again with desire. They decided to get married. Robert wrote to Edna. On the day of the wedding, Edna came to Paris. Why? It was as if she wanted to see everything with her own eyes, to suffer the very last drop of bitterness. In a few days she had become an old woman. A month before she was glowing, enchanting, her voice like a song, like an aureole around her, her walk light, her smile inundating one. And now she wore a mask. Over this mask she had spread powder. There was no glow of life under it. Her hair was lifeless. The glaze in her eyes was like that of a dying person. Dorothy was faint when she saw her. She cried out to her. Edna did not answer. She merely stared. The wedding was ghostly. Donald burst in in the middle of it and behaved like a madman, threatening Dorothy for deceiving him, threatening to commit suicide. When it was over, Dorothy fainted. Edna stood there carrying flowers, a figure of death.

• From Satyricon (1)

  (In spite of my ill-humor, Lycas saw how well my golden curls became me and, becoming enamoured anew, began winking his wanton eyes at me and) sought admission to my good graces upon a footing of pleasure, nor did he put on the arrogance of a master, but spoke as a friend asking a favor; (long and ardently he tried to gain his ends, but all in vain, till at last, meeting with a decisive repulse, his passion turned to fury and he tried to carry the place by storm; but Tryphaena came in unexpectedly and caught him in his wanton attempt, whereupon he was greatly upset and hastily adjusted his clothing and bolted out of the cabin. Tryphaena was fired with lust at this sight, “What was Lycas up to?” she demanded. “What was he after in that ardent assault?” She compelled me to explain, burned still more hotly at what she heard, and, recalling memories of our past familiarities, she desired me to renew our old amour, but I was worn out with so much venery and slighted her advances. She was burning up with desire by this time, and threw her arms around me in a frenzied embrace, hugging me so tightly that I uttered an involuntary cry of pain. One of her maids rushed in at this and, thinking that I was attempting to force from her mistress the very favor which I had refused her, she sprang at us and tore us apart. Thoroughly enraged at the disappointment of her lecherous passion, Tryphaena upbraided me violently, and with many threats she hurried out to find Lycas for the purpose of exasperating him further against me and of joining forces with him to be revenged upon me. Now you must know that I had formerly held a very high place in this waiting-maid’s esteem, while I was prosecuting my intrigue with her mistress, and for that reason she took it very hard when she surprised me with Tryphaena, and sobbed very bitterly. I pressed her earnestly to tell me the reason for her sobs) {and after pretending to be reluctant she broke out:} “You will think no more of her than of a common prostitute if you have a drop of decent blood in your veins! You will not resort to that female catamite, if you are a man!” {This disturbed my mind but} what exercised me most was the fear that Eumolpus would find out what was going on and, being a very sarcastic individual, might revenge my supposed injury in some poetic lampoon, (in which event his ardent zeal would without doubt expose me to ridicule, and I greatly dreaded that. But while I was debating with myself as to the best means of preventing him from getting at the facts, who should suddenly come in but the man himself; and he was not uninformed as to what had taken place, for Tryphaena had related all the particulars to Giton and had tried to indemnify herself for my repulse, at the expense of my little friend. Eumolpus was furiously angry because of all this, and all the more so as lascivious advances were in open violation of the treaty which had been signed. The minute the old fellow laid eyes upon me, he began bewailing my lot and ordered me to tell him exactly what had happened. As he was already well informed, I told him frankly of Lycas’ lecherous attempt and of Tryphaena’s wanton assault. When he had heard all the facts,) Eumolpus swore roundly (that he would certainly avenge us, as the Gods were just and would not suffer so many villainies to go unpunished.)

• From Satyricon (1)

  After having had the whole town under my eyes, I returned to the little room and, having claimed the kisses which were mine in good faith, I encircled the boy in the closest of embraces and enjoyed the effect of our happy vows to a point that might be envied. Nor had all the ceremonies been completed, when Ascyltos stole stealthily up to the outside of the door and, violently wrenching off the bars, burst in upon me, toying with my “brother.” He filled the little room with his laughter and hand-clapping, pulled away the cloak which covered us, “What are you up to now, most sanctimonious ‘brother’?” he jeered. “What’s going on here, a blanket-wedding?” Nor did he confine himself to words, but, pulling the strap off his bag, he began to lash me very thoroughly, interjecting sarcasms the while, “This is the way you would share with your comrade, is it!” (The unexpectedness of the thing compelled me to endure the blows in silence and to put up with the abuse, so I smiled at my calamity, and very prudently, too, as otherwise I should have been put to the necessity of fighting with a rival. My pretended good humor soothed his anger, and at last, Ascyltos smiled as well. “See here, Encolpius,” he said, “are you so engrossed with your debaucheries that you do not realize that our money is gone, and that what we have left is of no value? In the summer, times are bad in the city. The country is luckier, let’s go and visit our friends.” Necessity compelled the approval of this plan, and the repression of any sense of injury as well, so, loading Giton with our packs, we left the city and hastened to the country-seat of Lycurgus, a Roman knight. Inasmuch as Ascyltos has formerly served him in the capacity of “brother,” he received us royally, and the company there assembled, rendered our stay still more delightful. In the first place, there was Tryphaena, a most beautiful woman, who had come in company with Lycas, the master of a vessel and owner of estates near the seashore. Although Lycurgus kept a frugal table, the pleasures we enjoyed in this most enchanting spot cannot be described in words. Of course you know that Venus joined us all up, as quickly as possible. The lovely Tryphaena pleased my taste, and listened willingly to my vows, but hardly had I had time to enjoy her favors when Lycas, in a towering rage because his preserves had been secretly invaded, demanded that I indemnify him in her stead. She was an old flame of his, so he broached the subject of a mutual exchange of favors. Burning with lust, he pressed his suit, but Tryphaena possessed my heart, and I said Lycas nay.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “Don’t you feel this?” she asked with concern, pressing the lips between her fingers. “No,” I said, watching her. “Don’t you feel this?” She passed her fingers now around the tip of the clitoris, making tiny circles. “I don’t feel anything.” She became eager to see if I had lost my sensibility and increased her caresses, rubbing the clitoris with one hand while she vibrated the tip with the other. She stroked my pubic hair and tender skin around it. Finally I felt her, wildly, and I began to move. She was panting over me, watching me and saying, “Wonderful, wonderful, you can feel there . . .” I was remembering this as I sat on the dummy horse and noticed that the pommel was quite accentuated. So the painter could see what he wanted to paint, I slid forward, and as I did so my sex rubbed against the leather prominence. The painter was observing me. “Do you like my horse?” he said. “Do you know that I can make it move?” “Can you?” He came near me and set the dummy in motion, and indeed it was perfectly constructed to move like a horse. “I like it,” I said. “It reminds me of the times I rode horseback when I was a girl.” I noticed that he stopped painting now to watch me. The motion of the horse pushed my sex against the saddle even harder and gave me great pleasure. I thought that he would notice it, and so I said, “Stop it now.” But he smiled and did not stop it. “Don’t you like it?” he said. I did like it. Each movement brought the leather against my clitoris, and I thought I could not hold back an orgasm if it went on. I begged him to stop. My face was flushed. The painter was carefully watching me, watching every expression of a pleasure I could not control, and now it increased so that I abandoned myself to the motion of the horse, let myself rub against the leather, until I felt the orgasm and I came, riding this way in front of him. Only then did I know that he expected it, that he had done all this to see me enjoy it. He knew when to stop the machinery. “You can rest now,” he said. SOON AFTER, I went to pose for a woman illustrator, Lena, I had met at a party. She liked company. Actors and actresses came to see her, writers. She painted for magazine covers. The door was always open. People brought drinks. The talk was acid, cruel. It seemed to me that all her friends were caricaturists. Everyone’s weaknesses were immediately exposed. Or they exposed their own. One beautiful young man, dressed with great elegance, made no secret of his profession. He sat around at the big hotels, waited for old women who were alone and took them out to dance. Very often they invited him back to their rooms.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “No,” said the young girl, very seriously. “But I always wanted to. That is why I ran away. I knew my mother would continue to hide me. Meanwhile she was receiving men all the time. I heard them. My mother is quite beautiful, and men often came and locked themselves in with her. But she would never let me see them, or even let me go out alone. And I wanted to have a few men to myself.” “A few men,” said Jean laughing. “One is not enough?” “I don’t know yet,” she said with the same seriousness. “I will have to see.” Then Jean turned his whole attention to Jeanette’s firm and pointed little breasts. He kissed them and fondled them. Jeannette was watching him with great interest. Then when he stopped to rest himself, she suddenly unbuttoned his shirt, and laid her fresh breasts against his chest and rubbed herself against it exactly like a languorous, voluptuous cat. Jean was amazed at her talent for lovemaking. She was progressing fast. Her nipples had known just how to touch his own, just how to rub against his chest and excite him. So now he uncovered her and began to unfasten the cord of her pajamas. But at this point she asked him to turn out the light. Pierre came home about midnight, and as he walked past the room he heard the moaning sounds of a woman, which he recognized as sounds of pleasure. He stopped. He could imagine the scene behind the door. The moans were rhythmic, then at times like the cooing of doves. Pierre could not help listening. Then the next day Jean told him about Jeanette. He said, “You know, I thought she was just a young girl, and she was . . . she was a virgin, but you have never seen such an aptitude for love. She is insatiable. She has already worn me out.” Then he went out to work, and was gone the whole day. Pierre remained in the apartment. At noon Jeanette appeared quite timidly and asked if she was going to have lunch. So they had lunch together. Then after lunch she disappeared until Jean came home. The same thing happened the next day. And the next. She was as quiet as a mouse. But every night Pierre heard the moaning and crooning, the dove-cooing behind the door. After eight days, he noticed that Jean was growing tired. Jean was twice Jeanette’s age to begin with, and then Jeanette, keeping her mother in mind, must have been seeking to outdo her. On the ninth day Jean stayed out all night. Jeanette came to wake Pierre. She was alarmed. She thought Jean had met with an accident. But Pierre had guessed the truth. Indeed, Jean was already tired of her and wanted to inform her mother of her whereabouts. But he had not been able to extract the address from Jeanette. So he merely stayed away.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Then he got up, flung his pencil on the table, leaned over me and kissed me fully on the mouth, forcing my head backwards. I pushed him off violently. This made him smile. He slipped his hand swiftly up under my skirt, felt my thighs where the stockings stopped and before I could move was back in his seat. I took the pose and said nothing, because I had just made a discovery—that in spite of my anger, in spite of the fact that I was not in love, the kiss and the caress on the naked thighs had given me pleasure. While I fought him off, it was only out of a habit, but actually it had given me pleasure. The pose gave me time to awaken from the pleasure and remember my defenses. But my defenses had been convincing and he was quiet for the rest of the morning. From the very first I had divined that what I really had to defend myself against was my own susceptibility to caresses. I was also filled with great curiosities about so many things. At the same time I was utterly convinced that I would not give myself to anyone but the man I fell in love with. I was in love with Stephen. I wanted to go to him and say: “Take me, take me!” I suddenly remembered another incident, and that was a year before this when one of my aunts had taken me to New Orleans to the Mardi Gras. Friends of hers had driven us in their automobile. There were two other young girls with us. A band of young men took advantage of the confusion, the noise, the excitement and gaiety to jump into our automobile, remove our masks and begin kissing us while my aunt raised an outcry. Then they disappeared into the crowd. I was left dazed and wishing that the young man who had taken hold of me and had kissed me on the mouth were still there. I was languid from the kiss, languid and stirred. Back at the club I wondered what all the rest of the models felt. There was a great deal of talk about defending oneself, and I wondered whether it was all sincere. One of the loveliest models, whose face was not particularly beautiful but who had a magnificent body, was talking:

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Standing beside the bed, Novalis looked at her with his brows contracted, dominated by a desire that he hesitated to express; he wanted to see her, to admire her. He did not fully know her yet despite those nights in the hotel when they could hear strange voices on the other side of the thin walls. What he asked was not the caprice of a lover, but the desire of a painter, of an artist. His eyes were hungry for her beauty. María resisted, blushing, a trifle angry, her deepest prejudices offended. “Don’t be foolish, Novalis, dearest,” she said. “Come to bed.” But he persisted. She must overcome her bourgeois scruples, he said. Art scoffed at such modesty, human beauty was meant to be shown in all its majesty and not to be kept hidden, despised. His hands, restrained by the fear of hurting her, gently pulled her weak arms, which were crossed on her breast. She laughed. “You silly thing. You’re tickling me. You’re hurting me.” But little by little, her feminine pride nattered by this worship of her body, she gave in to him, allowed herself to be treated like a child, with soft remonstrances, as if she were undergoing a pleasant torture. Her body, freed from veils, shone with the whiteness of pearl. María closed her eyes as if she wanted to flee from the shame of her nakedness. On the smooth sheet, her graceful form intoxicated the eyes of the artist. “You are Goya’s fascinating little maja,” he said. In the weeks that followed she would neither pose for him nor allow him to use models. She would appear unexpectedly in his studio and chat with him while he painted. One afternoon when she came suddenly into the studio she saw on the model’s platform a naked woman lying in some furs, showing the curves of her ivory back. Later María made a scene. Novalis begged her to pose for him; she capitulated. Tired out by the heat, she fell asleep. He worked for three hours without a pause. With frank immodesty, she admired herself in the canvas just as she did in the great mirror in the bedroom. Dazzled by the beauty of her own body, she momentarily lost her self-consciousness. Also, Novalis had painted a different face on her body so that no one would recognize her. But afterwards, María fell again into her old habits of thinking, refused to pose. She made a scene each time Novalis engaged a model, watching and listening behind doors and quarreling constantly. She became quite ill with anxiety and morbid fears and developed insomnia. The doctor gave her pills which sent her off into a deep sleep.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  During the hours when the girls were shut in their classrooms he would frequent the pissoirs of Paris, of which there were so many—the little round kiosks, the labyrinths without doors, out of which would always come men boldly buttoning themselves while staring straight into the face of a very elegant woman, a perfumed and chic woman, who would not be immediately aware that the man was coming out of a pissoir and who would then drop her eyes. This was one of Manuel’s greatest delights. He would also stand there against the urinal and look up at the houses above his head, where often there would be a woman leaning out of a window or standing on a balcony, and from up there they would see him holding his penis. He derived no pleasure from being stared at by men or else this would have been a paradise for him, for all men knew the trick of pissing away quietly while looking at his neighbor performing the same operation. And young boys would come in for no other reason but to see and perhaps help each other along in the act. The day when the shy girl had looked at Manuel he was very happy. He thought that now it would be easier to satisfy himself fully if only he could control himself. What he feared was the impetuous desire that took hold of him to show himself no matter what the cost, and then all would be spoiled. This was the moment for another visit, and the little girls were coming up the stairs. Manuel had donned a kimono, one that could easily slip open, by accident. The birds were performing quite beautifully, bickering and kissing and quarreling. Manuel stood behind the girls. Suddenly his kimono opened, and when he found himself touching long blond hair, he lost his head. Instead of wrapping his kimono, he opened it wider, and as the girls turned they all saw him standing there in a trance, his big penis erect, pointing at them. They all took fright, like little birds, and ran away. The Woman on the DunesLouis could not sleep. He turned over in his bed to lie on his stomach and, burying his face in the pillow, moved against the hot sheets as if he were lying over the woman. But when the friction increased the fever in his body, he stopped himself. He got out of bed and looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. What could he do to appease his fever? He left his studio. The moon was shining and he could see the roads clearly. The place, a beach town in Normandy, was full of little cottages, which people could rent for a night or a week. Louis wandered aimlessly.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “Not if you don’t want them to.” “But do they try . . . ?” I saw that he was anxious. We were walking to my house from the railway station, through the dark fields. I turned to him and offered my mouth. He kissed me. I said, “Stephen, take me, take me, take me.” He was completely dumbfounded. I was throwing myself into the refuge of his big arms, I wanted to be taken and have it all over with, I wanted to be made woman. But he was absolutely still, frightened. He said, “I want to marry you, but I can’t do it just now.” “I don’t care about the marriage.” But now I became conscious of his surprise, and it quieted me. I was immensely disappointed by his conventional attitude. The moment passed. He thought it was merely an attack of blind passion, that I had lost my head. He was even proud to have protected me against my own impulses. I went home to bed and sobbed. ONE ILLUSTRATOR asked me if I would pose on Sunday, that he was in a great rush to finish a poster. I consented. When I arrived he was already at work. It was morning and the building seemed deserted. His studio was on the thirteenth floor. He had half of the poster done. I got undressed quickly and put on the evening dress he had given me to wear. He did not seem to pay any attention to me. We worked in peace for a long while. I grew tired. He noticed it and gave me a rest. I walked about the studio looking at the other pictures. They were mostly portraits of actresses. I asked him who they were. He answered me with details about their sexual tastes: “Oh, this one, this one demands romanticism. It’s the only way you can get near her. She makes it difficult. She is European and she likes an intricate courtship. Halfway through I gave it up. It was too strenuous. She was very beautiful though, and there is something wonderful about getting a woman like that in bed. She had beautiful eyes, an entranced air, like some Hindu mystic. It makes you wonder how they will behave in bed.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  I kiss her clitoris, still wet from the bath; her pubic hair, still damp as seaweed. Her sex tastes like a seashell, a wonderful, fresh, salty seashell. Oh, Mary! My fingers work more quickly, she falls back on the bed, offering her whole sex to me, open and moist, like a camellia, like rose petals, like velvet, satin. It is rosy and new, as if no one had ever touched it. It is like the sex of a young girl. Her legs hang over the side of the bed. Her sex is open; I can bite into it, kiss it, insert my tongue. She does not move. The little clitoris stiffens like a nipple. My head between her two legs is caught in the most delicious vise of silky, salty flesh. My hands travel upwards to her heavy breasts, caress them. She begins to moan a little. Now her hands travel downwards and join mine in caressing her own sex. She likes to be touched at the mouth of her sex, below the clitoris. She touches the place with me. It is there I would like to push a penis and move until I make her scream with pleasure. I put my tongue at the opening and push it in as far as it will go. I take her ass in my two hands, like a big fruit, and push it upwards, and while my tongue is playing there in the mouth of her sex, my fingers press into the flesh of her ass, travel around its firmness, into its curve, and my forefinger feels the mouth of her anus and pushes in gently. Suddenly Mary gives a start—as if I have touched off an electric spark. She moves to enclose my finger. I press it farther, all the while moving my tongue inside her sex. She begins to moan, to undulate. When she sinks downwards she feels my flicking finger, when she rises upwards she meets my flicking tongue. With every move, she feels my quickening rhythm, until she has a long spasm and begins to moan like a pigeon. With my finger I feel the palpitation of pleasure, going once, twice, thrice, beating ecstatically. She falls over, panting. “Oh, Mandra, what have you done to me, what have you done to me!” She kisses me, drinking the salty moisture from my mouth. Her breasts fall against me as she holds me, saying again, “Oh, Mandra, what have you done . . .”

• From Little Birds (1979)

  I AM INVITED one night to the apartment of a young society couple, the H’s. It is like being on a boat because it is near the East River and the barges pass while we talk, the river is alive. Miriam is a delight to look at, a Brunhilde, full-breasted, with sparkling hair, a voice that lures you to her. Her husband, Paul, is small and of the race of the imps, not a man but a faun—a lyrical animal, quick and humorous. He thinks I am beautiful. He treats me like an objet d’art. The black butler opens the door. Paul exclaims over me, my Goyaesque hood, the red flower in my hair, and hurries me into the salon to display me. Miriam is sitting cross-legged on a purple satin divan. She is a natural beauty, whereas I, an artificial one, need a setting and warmth to bloom successfully. Their apartment is full of furnishings I find individually ugly—silver candelabra, tables with nooks for trailing flowers, enormous mulberry satin poufs, rococo objects, things full of chic, collected with snobbish playfulness, as if to say “We can make fun of everything created by fashion, we are above it all.” Everything is touched with aristocratic impudence, through which I can sense the H’s fabulous life in Rome, Florence; Miriam’s frequent appearances in Vogue wearing Chanel dresses; the pompousness of their families; their efforts to be elegantly bohemian; and their obsession with the word that is the key to society—everything must be “amusing.” Miriam calls me into her bedroom to show me a new bathing suit she has bought in Paris. For this, she undresses herself completely, and then takes the long piece of material and begins rolling it around herself like the primitive draping of the Balinese. Her beauty goes to my head. She undrapes herself, walks naked around the room, and then says, “I wish I looked like you. You are so exquisite and dainty. I am so big.” “But that’s just why I like you, Miriam.” “Oh, your perfume, Mandra.” She pushes her face into my shoulder under my hair and smells my skin. I place my hand on her shoulder. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Miriam.” Paul is calling out to us, “When are you going to finish talking about clothes in there? I’m bored!” Miriam replies, “We’re coming.” And she dresses quickly in slacks. When she comes out Paul says, “And now you’re dressed to stay at home, and I want to take you to hear the String Man. He sings the most marvelous songs about a string and finally hangs himself on it.” Miriam says, “Oh, all right. I’ll get dressed.” And she goes into the bathroom. I stay behind with Paul, but soon Miriam calls me. “Mandra, come in here and talk to me.” I think, by this time she will be half-dressed, but no, she is standing naked in the bathroom, powdering and fixing her face.