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 69 of 344 · 20 per page

• From The Lover (1984)

  It’s in Cholon. Opposite the boulevards linking the Chinese part of the city to the center of Saigon, the great American-style streets full of streetcars, rickshaws, and buses. It’s early in the afternoon. She’s got out of the compulsory outing with the other girls. It’s a native housing estate to the south of the city. His place is modern, hastily furnished from the look of it, with furniture supposed to be ultra-modern. He says, I didn’t choose the furniture. It’s dark in the studio, but she doesn’t ask him to open the shutters. She doesn’t feel anything in particular, no hate, no repugnance either, so probably it’s already desire. But she doesn’t know it. She agreed to come as soon as he asked her the previous evening. She’s where she has to be, placed here. She feels a tinge of fear. It’s as if this must be not only what she expects, but also what had to happen especially to her. She pays close attention to externals, to the light, to the noise of the city in which the room is immersed. He’s trembling. At first he looks at her as though he expects her to speak, but she doesn’t. So he doesn’t do anything either, doesn’t undress her, says he loves her madly, says it very softly. Then is silent. She doesn’t answer. She could say she doesn’t love him. She says nothing. Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn’t understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her. It’s up to her to know. And she does. Because of his ignorance she suddenly knows: she was attracted to him already on the ferry. She was attracted to him. It depended on her alone. She says, I’d rather you didn’t love me. But if you do, I’d like you to do as you usually do with women. He looks at her in horror, asks, Is that what you want? She says it is. He’s started to suffer here in this room, for the first time, he’s no longer lying about it. He says he knows already she’ll never love him. She lets him say it. At first she says she doesn’t know. Then she lets him say it. He says he’s lonely, horribly lonely because of this love he feels for her. She says she’s lonely too. She doesn’t say why. He says, You’ve come here with me as you might have gone anywhere with anyone. She says she can’t say, so far she’s never gone into a bedroom with anyone. She tells him she doesn’t want him to talk, what she wants is for him to do as he usually does with the women he brings to his flat. She begs him to do that.

• From The Lover (1984)

  Hélène Lagonelle’s body is heavy, innocent still, her skin’s as soft as that of certain fruits, you almost can’t grasp her, she’s almost illusory, it’s too much. She makes you want to kill her, she conjures up a marvelous dream of putting her to death with your own hands. Those flour-white shapes, she bears them unknowingly, and offers them for hands to knead, for lips to eat, without holding them back, without any knowledge of them and without any knowledge of their fabulous power. I’d like to eat Hélène Lagonelle’s breasts as he eats mine in the room in the Chinese town where I go every night to increase my knowledge of God. I’d like to devour and be devoured by those flour-white breasts of hers. I am worn out with desire for Hélène Lagonelle. I am worn out with desire. I want to take Hélène Lagonelle with me to where every evening, my eyes shut, I have imparted to me the pleasure that makes you cry out. I’d like to give Hélène Lagonelle to the man who does that to me, so he may do it in turn to her. I want it to happen in my presence, I want her to do it as I wish, I want her to give herself where I give myself. It’s via Hélène Lagonelle’s body, through it, that the ultimate pleasure would pass from him to me. A pleasure unto death. I see her as being of one flesh with the man from Cholon, but in a shining, solar, innocent present, in a continual self-flowering which springs out of each action, each tear, each of her faults, each of her ignorances. Hélène Lagonelle is the mate of the bondsman who gives me such abstract, such harsh pleasure, the obscure man from Cholon, from China. Hélène Lagonelle is from China. I haven’t forgotten Hélène Lagonelle. I haven’t forgotten the bondsman. When I went away, when I left him, I didn’t go near another man for two years. But that mysterious fidelity must have been to myself. I’m still part of the family, it’s there I live, to the exclusion of everywhere else. It’s in its aridity, its terrible harshness, its malignance, that I’m most deeply sure of myself, at the heart of my essential certainty, the certainty that later on I’ll be a writer. That’s the place where later on, once the present is left behind, I must stay, to the exclusion of everywhere else. The hours I spend in the apartment show it in a new light. It’s a place that’s intolerable, bordering on death, a place of violence, pain, despair, dishonor. And so is Cholon. On the other bank of the river. As soon as you’ve crossed to the other side.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful." The woman to which her young charges was Bathsheba. David summoned her, seduced her (supposedly), then pro- had already succumbed. ceeded to get rid of her husband, Uriah, in battle. In fact, however, it was So, having roused Masetto, she led him away to her Bathsheba who had seduced David. She bathed on her roof at an hour room, where she kept him when she knew he would be standing on his balcony. After tempting a man for several days, thus she knew had a weakness for women, she played the coquette, forcing him provoking bitter complaints to come after her. This is the opportunity strategy: give someone weak the from the nuns over the fact that the handyman had chance to have what they lust after by merely placing yourself within their suspended work in the reach, as if by accident. Temptation is often a matter of timing, of crossing garden. Before sending him the path of the weak at the right moment, giving them the opportunity to back to his own quarters, she repeatedly savored the surrender. one pleasure for which she Bathsheba used her entire body as a lure, but it is often more effective had always reserved her to use only a part of the body, creating a fetishlike effect. Madame Re- most fierce disapproval, and from then on she camier would let you glimpse her body beneath the sheer dresses she wore, demanded regular but only briefly, when she took off her overgarment to dance. Men would supplementary allocations, leave that evening dreaming of what little they had seen. Empress Josephine amounting to considerably more than her fair share. made a point of baring her beautiful arms in public. Give the target only a part of you to fantasize about, thereby creating a constant temptation in —GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, THE DECAMERON, TRANSLATED their mind. B Y G . H . M C W I L L I A M Symbol: The Apple in the Garden of Eden. The fruit looks deeply inviting, and you are not supposed to eat of it; it is forbidden. But that is pre- cisely why you think of it day and night. You see it but cannot have it. And the only way to get rid of this tempta- tion is to yield and taste the fruit. 238 • The Art of Seduction Reversal The reverse of temptation is security or satisfaction, and both are fatal to seduction. If you cannot tempt someone out of their habitual comfort, you cannot seduce them. If you satisfy the desire you have awakened, the seduction is over. There is no reversal to temptation. Although some stages can be passed over, no seduction can proceed without some form of temptation, so it is always better to plan it carefully, tailoring it to the weakness and childishness in your particular target. Phase Two Lead Astray— Creating Pleasure and Confusion

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  he replies, "Are you not woman enough to know?" Yet she ends up falling there is such a girl [ engaged in love with him, as indeed women did in movie audiences all over the to you] , let me enjoy your love in secret: but if there is world, thrilling at his strange blend of the feminine and the masculine. In not, then I pray that I may one scene in The Sheik, the English lady points a gun at Valentino; his re-be your bride, and that we sponse is to point a delicate cigarette holder back at her. She wears pants; may enter upon marriage together." The naiad said he wears long flowing robes and abundant eye makeup. Later films would no more; but a blush include scenes of Valentino dressing and undressing, a kind of striptease stained the boy's cheeks, for showing glimpses of his trim body. In almost all of his films he played some he did not know what love exotic period character—a Spanish bullfighter, an Indian rajah, an Arab was. Even blushing became him: his cheeks were the sheik, a French nobleman—and he seemed to delight in dressing up in jew-colour of ripe apples, els and tight uniforms. hanging in a sunny orchard, In the 1920s, women were beginning to play with a new sexual free-like painted ivory or like the moon when, in eclipse, dom. Instead of waiting for a man to be interested in them, they wanted to she shows a reddish hue be able to initiate the affair, but they still wanted the man to end up sweep-beneath her brightness. . . . ing them off their feet. Valentino understood this perfectly. His off-screen Incessantly the nymph demanded at least sisterly life corresponded to his movie image: he wore bracelets on his arm, dressed kisses, and tried to put her impeccably, and reportedly was cruel to his wife, and hit her. (His adoring arms round his ivory neck. public carefully ignored his two failed marriages and his apparently nonex- "Will you stop!" he cried, istent sex life.) When he suddenly died—in New York in August 1926, at "or I shall run away and leave this place and you!" the age of thirty-one, from complications after surgery for an ulcer—the Salmacis was afraid: "1 response was unprecedented: more than 100,000 people filed by his coffin, yield the spot to you, many female mourners became hysterical, and the whole nation was spell-stranger, I shall not intrude," she said; and, bound. Nothing like this had happened before for a mere actor. turning from him, pretended to go away. . . . The boy, There is a film of Valentino's, Monsieur Beaucaire, in which he plays a total meanwhile, thinking

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “That and your smart mouth.” He kisses me again passionately, then abruptly releases me, taking my hand and leading me to the kitchen. I’m reeling. One minute we’re joking and the next… I fan my heated face. He’s just sex on legs, and now I have to recover my equilibrium and eat something. The aria is still playing in the background. “What’s the music?” “‘Villa Lobos,’ an aria from Bachianas Brasileiras. Good, isn’t it?” “Yes,” I murmur in total agreement. The breakfast bar is laid for two. Christian takes a salad bowl from the fridge. “Chicken Caesar salad okay with you?” Oh, thank heavens, nothing too heavy. “Yes, fine, thank you.” I watch as he moves gracefully through his kitchen. He’s so at ease with his body on one level, but then he doesn’t like to be touched…so maybe deep down he isn’t. No man is an island, I muse—except perhaps Christian Grey. “What are you thinking?” he asks, pulling me from my reverie. My face heats. “I was just watching the way you move.” He raises an eyebrow, amused. “And?” His tone is wry. “You’re very graceful.” “Why, thank you, Miss Steele.” He sits down beside me, holding a bottle of wine. “Chablis?” “Please.” “Help yourself to salad.” His voice is soft. “Tell me—what method did you opt for?” I am momentarily thrown by his question, when I realize he’s talking about Dr. Greene’s visit. “Mini pill.” He frowns. “And will you remember to take it regularly, at the right time, every day?” Jeez…of course I will. How does he know? I blush at the thought—probably from one or more of the fifteen. “I’m sure you’ll remind me,” I murmur dryly. He glances at me with amused condescension. “I’ll put an alarm on my calendar.” He smirks. “Eat.” The chicken Caesar is delicious. To my surprise, I’m famished, and for the first time since I’ve been with him, I finish my meal before he does. The wine is crisp, clean, and fruity. “Eager as ever, Miss Steele?” he smiles down at my empty plate. I look at him from beneath my lashes. “Yes.” His breath hitches. And as he stares at me, the atmosphere between us slowly shifts, evolving…charging. His look goes from dark to smoldering, taking me with him. He stands, closing the distance between us, and tugs me off my barstool and into his arms. “Do you want to do this?” he breathes, looking down at me intently. “I haven’t signed anything.” “I know—but I’m breaking all the rules these days.” “Are you going to hit me?” “Yes, but it won’t be to hurt you. I don’t want to punish you right now. If you’d caught me yesterday evening, well, that would have been a different story.” Holy cow. He wants to hurt me… How do I deal with this? I can’t hide the horror on my face.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  come obsessed with her. She was now close to fifty, but was more alluring fashion as I passed her; than ever. He greased some palms and was able to sit at her table. He could like a sleek tigress watching its dinner go away. For a hardly talk: the way her eyes bored into him, a simple readjustment in her fleeting second I thought chair, her body brushing up against him as she got up, the way she managed she might turn around and to walk in front of him and display herself. Later, strolling along a boule-follow me. " • What would Chevalier have done had vard, they passed a jewelry store. He went inside, and moments later found she pursued him? His himself plopping down $31,000 for a diamond necklace. For three nights lower lip dropped into that La Belle Otero was his. Never in his life had he felt so masculine and im-half pout which is the Frenchman's exclusive petuous. Years later, he still believed it was well worth the price he had possession. Then he paid. grinned. • "I'd have slowed down and let her catch up." Interpretation. Although La Belle Otero was beautiful, hundreds of — A R T H U R H . LEWIS, LA BELLE OTERO women were more so, or were more charming and talented. But Otero was constantly on fire. Men could read it in her eyes, the way her body moved, a dozen other signs. The heat that radiated out from her came from her own inner desires: she was insatiably sexual. But she was also a practiced and calculating courtesan, and knew how to put her sexuality to effect. Use Physical Lures • 397 Onstage she made every man in the audience come alive, abandoning her-You're anxiously expecting self in dance. In person she was cooler, or slightly so. A man likes to feel me to escort you \ To parties: here too solicit my that a woman is enflamed not because she has an insatiable appetite but be- advice. \ Arrive late, when cause of him; so Otero personalized her sexuality, using glances, a brushing the lamps are lit; make a of skin, a more languorous tone of voice, a saucy comment, to suggest that graceful entrance— \ Delay enhances charm, delay's a the man was heating her up. In her memoirs she revealed that Prince Albert great bawd. \ Plain you was a most inept lover. Yet he believed, along with many other men, that may be, but at night you'll with her he was Hercules himself. Her sexuality actually originated from look fine to the tipsy: \ her, but she created the illusion that the man was the aggressor. Soft lights and shadows will mask your faults. \ The key to luring the target into the final act of your seduction is not Take your food with dainty

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  In politics the dangers are similar. Years after Kennedy's death, a string of revelations (his incessant sexual affairs, his excessively dangerous brinkmanship style of diplomacy, etc.) belied the myth he had created. His image has survived this tarnishing; poll after poll shows that he is still revered. Kennedy is a special case, perhaps, in that his assassination made him a martyr, reinforcing the process of idealization that he had already set in motion. But he is not the only example of an Ideal Lover whose attraction survives unpleasant revelations; these figures unleash such powerful fantasies, and there is such a hunger for the myths and ideals they have to sell, that they are often quickly forgiven. Still, it is always wise to be prudent, and to keep people from glimpsing the less-than-ideal side of your character. Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are— those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they cannot be categorized, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. They play with masculinity and femininity; they fashion their own physical image, which is always startling; they are mysterious and elusive. They also appeal to the narcissism of each sex: to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man they are male. Dandies fascinate and seduce in large numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires. The Feminine Dandy When the eighteen-year-old Rodolpho Guglielmi emigrated from Italy to the United States in 1913, he came with no particular skills apart from his good looks and his dancing prowess. To put these qualities to advantage, he found work in the thes dansants, the Manhattan dance halls where young girls would go alone or with friends and hire a taxi dancer for a brief thrill. The taxi dancer would expertly twirl them around the dance Once a son was born to floor, flirting and chatting, all for a small fee. Guglielmi soon made a name Mercury and the goddess as one of the best—so graceful, poised, and pretty. Venus, and he was brought up by the naiads in Ida's In working as a taxi dancer, Guglielmi spent a great deal of time around caves. In his features, it women. He quickly learned what pleased them—how to mirror them in was easy to trace subtle ways, how to put them at ease (but not too much). He began to pay resemblance to his father and to his mother. He was attention to his clothes, creating his own dapper look: he danced with a called after them, too, for corset under his shirt to give himself a trim figure, sported a wristwatch his name was (considered effeminate in those days), and claimed to be a marquis. In 1915, Hermaphroditus. As soon as he was fifteen, he left

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Marilyn Monroe loved the effect her body could have on the male libido. make you victorious in all your battles, as well She tuned her physical presence like an instrument, making herself reek of as the handsomest and sex and gaining a glamorous, larger-than-life appearance. Other women wisest man in the world." knew just as many tricks for heightening their sexual appeal, but what sepa- • " I am a humble rated Marilyn from them was an unconscious element. Her background The Siren • 11 had deprived her of something critical: affection. Her deepest need was to herdsman, not a soldier," feel loved and desired, which made her seem constantly vulnerable, like a said Paris. . . . "But I promise to consider fairly little girl craving protection. She emanated this need for love before the your claim to the apple. camera; it was effortless, coming from somewhere real and deep inside. A Now you are at liberty to look or gesture that she did not intend to arouse desire would do so doubly put on your clothes and powerfully just because it was unintended—its innocence was precisely helmet again. Is Aphrodite ready?" • Aphrodite sidled what excited a man. up to him, and Paris The Sex Siren has a more urgent and immediate effect than the Spec- blushed because she came tacular Siren does. The incarnation of sex and desire, she does not bother so close that they were almost touching. • "Look to appeal to extraneous senses, or to create a theatrical buildup. Her time carefully, please, pass never seems to be taken up by work or chores; she gives the impression that nothing over. . . . By the she lives for pleasure and is always available. What separates the Sex Siren way, as soon as I saw you, I said to myself: 'Upon my from the courtesan or whore is her touch of innocence and vulnerability. word, there goes the The mix is perversely satisfying: it gives the male the critical illusion that he handsomest young man in is a protector, the father figure, although it is actually the Sex Siren who Phrygia! Why does he waste himself here in the controls the dynamic. wilderness herding stupid A woman doesn't have to be born with the attributes of a Marilyn cattle?' Well, why do you, Monroe to fill the role of the Sex Siren. Most of the physical elements are Paris? Why not move into a construction; the key is the air of schoolgirl innocence. While one part of a city and lead a civilized life? What have you to lose you seems to scream sex, the other part is coy and naive, as if you were in- by marrying someone like capable of understanding the effect you are having. Your walk, your voice, Helen of Sparta, who is as your manner are delightfully ambiguous—you are both the experienced, beautiful as I am, and no less passionate? . . . I

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  as the incarnation of the Egyptian exotic. His life with her was a constant Sirens became aware that a game, as challenging as warfare, for the moment he felt secure with her she ship was swiftly bearing 7 8 • The Art of Seduction down upon them, and would suddenly turn cold or angry and he would have to find a way to re-broke into their liquid song. gain her favor. • " Draw near," they sang, The weeks went by. Caesar got rid of all Cleopatra's rivals and found "illustrious Odysseus, flower of Achaean chivalry, excuses to stay in Egypt. At one point she led him on a lavish historical exand bring your ship to rest pedition down the Nile. In a boat of unimaginable splendor—towering so that you may hear our fifty-four feet out of the water, including several terraced levels and a pil-voices. No seaman ever sailed his black ship past lared temple to the god Dionysus—Caesar became one of the few Romans this spot without listening to gaze on the pyramids. And while he stayed long in Egypt, away from to the sweet tones that flow his throne in Rome, all kinds of turmoil erupted throughout the Roman from our lips . . ." • The Empire. lovely voices came to me across the water, and my When Caesar was murdered, in 44 B.C., he was succeeded by a triumvi-heart was filled with such a rate of rulers including Mark Antony, a brave soldier who loved pleasure longing to listen that with and spectacle and fancied himself a kind of Roman Dionysus. A few years nod and frown I signed to my men to set me free. later, while Antony was in Syria, Cleopatra invited him to come meet her — H O M E R , THE ODYSSEY, BOOK in the Egyptian town of Tarsus. There—once she had made him wait for X I I , T R A N S L A T E D B Y E . V . R I E U her—her appearance was as startling in its way as her first before Caesar. A magnificent gold barge with purple sails appeared on the river Cydnus. The oarsmen rowed to the accompaniment of ethereal music; all around the The charm of [ Cleopatra's] boat were beautiful young girls dressed as nymphs and mythological figures. presence was irresistible, and there was an attraction Cleopatra sat on deck, surrounded and fanned by cupids and posed as the in her person and talk, goddess Aphrodite, whose name the crowd chanted enthusiastically. together with a peculiar Like all of Cleopatra's victims, Antony felt mixed emotions. The exotic force of character, which

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  As Europe's feudal system of government faded into the past, courtiers needed to get their way in court without the use of force. They learned the power to be gained by se- ducing their superiors and competitors through psychological games, soft words, a little coquetry. As culture became democratized, actors, dandies, and artists came to use the tactics of seduction as a way to charm and win over their audience and social milieu. In the nineteenth century another great change occurred: politicians like Napoleon consciously saw them- selves as seducers, on a grand scale. These men depended on the art of se- ductive oratory, but they also mastered what had once been feminine strategies: staging vast spectacles, using theatrical devices, creating a charged physical presence. All this, they learned, was the essence of charisma—and remains so today. By seducing the masses they could accumulate immense power without the use of force. Today we have reached the ultimate point in the evolution of seduc- tion. Now more than ever, force or brutality of any kind is discouraged. All areas of social life require the ability to persuade people in a way that does not offend or impose itself. Forms of seduction can be found everywhere, blending male and female strategies. Advertisements insinuate, the soft sell dominates. If we are to change people's opinions—and affecting opinion is basic to seduction—we must act in subtle, subliminal ways. Today no politi- became less harsh, not that they had managed to liberate themselves entirely from the state of oppression to which their weakness condemned them; but, in the state of perpetual war that continues to exist between women and men, one has seen them, with the help of the caresses they have been able to invent, combat ceaselessly, sometimes vanquish, and often more skillfully take advantage of the forces directed against them; sometimes, too, men have turned against women these weapons the women had forged to combat them, and their slavery has become all the harsher for it. —CHODERLOS DE LACLOS, ON THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN, TRANSLATED BY LYDIA DAVIS, IN THE LIBERTINE READER, EDITED BY MICHAEL FEHER Much more genius is needed to make love than to command armies. —NINON DE L'ENCLOS Menelaus, if you are really going to kill her, \ Then my blessing go with you, but you must do it now, \ Before her looks so twist the strings of your heart \ That they turn your mind; for her eyes are like armies, \And where her glances fall, there cities burn, \ Until the dust of their ashes is blown \ By her sighs. I know her, Men elans, \ And so do you. And all those who know her suffer. —HECUBA SPEAKING ABOUT HELEN OF TROY IN EURIPIDES, THE TROJAN WOMEN, TRANSLATED BY NEIL CURRY Preface • xxi cal campaign can work without seduction.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  At first the legend was a male fantasy: the adventurous knight who could have any woman he wanted. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Don Juan slowly evolved from the masculine adven- turer to a more feminized version: a man who lived only for women. This evolution came from women's interest in the story, and was a result of their frustrated desires. Marriage for them was a form of indentured servitude; but Don Juan offered pleasure for its own sake, desire with no strings at- The Rake • 25 tached. For the time he crossed your path, you were all he thought about. His desire for you was so powerful that he gave you no time to think or to worry about the consequences. He would come in the night, give you an unforgettable moment, and then vanish. He might have conquered a thou- sand women before you, but that only made him more interesting; better to be abandoned than undesired by such a man. The great seducers do not offer the mild pleasures that society con- dones. They touch a person's unconscious, those repressed desires that cry out for liberation. Do not imagine that women are the tender creatures that some people would like them to be. Like men, they are deeply attracted to the forbidden, the dangerous, even the slightly evil. (Don Juan ends by go- ing to hell, and the word "rake" comes from "rakehell," a man who rakes the coals of hell; the devilish component, clearly, is an important part of the fantasy.) Always remember: if you are to play the Rake, you must con- vey a sense of risk and darkness, suggesting to your victim that she is partici- pating in something rare and thrilling—a chance to play out her own rakish desires. To play the Rake, the most obvious requirement is the ability to let yourself go, to draw a woman into the kind of purely sensual moment in which past and future lose meaning. You must be able to abandon yourself to the moment. (When the Rake Valmont—a character modeled after the Duke de Richelieu—in Laclos' eighteenth-century novel Dangerous Liaisons writes letters that are obviously calculated to have a certain effect on his chosen victim, Madame de Tourvel, she sees right through them; but when his letters really do burn with passion, she begins to relent.) An added benefit of this quality is that it makes you seem unable to control yourself, a display of weakness that a woman enjoys.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  next few months—until the novelty wore off—de Valois and Richelieu en-who knows how to joyed endless trysts. communicate gradually the heat of love to the senses of Everyone in Paris knew of Richelieu's exploits, for he made it a point the most virtuous woman to publicize them as loudly as possible. Every week a new story would cir-is quite certain of soon culate through the court. A husband had locked his wife in an upstairs being absolute master of her mind and her person; room at night, worried the duke was after her; to reach her the duke had you cannot reflect when crawled in darkness along a thin wooden plank suspended between two you have lost your head; upper-floor windows. Two women who lived in the same house, one a and, moreover, principles of widow, the other married and quite religious, had discovered to their mu-wisdom, however deeply engraved they may be on tual horror that the duke was having an affair with both of them at the the mind, are effaced in same time, leaving one in the middle of the night to be with the other. that moment when the When they confronted him, the duke, always on the prowl for something heart yearns only for pleasure: pleasure alone novel, and a devilish talker, had neither apologized nor backed down, but then commands and is proceeded to talk them into a menage a trois, playing on the wounded obeyed. The man who has vanity of each woman, who could not stand the thought of him preferring had experience of conquests nearly always succeeds the other. Year after year, the stories of his remarkable seductions spread. where he who is only timid One woman admired his audacity and bravery, another his gallantry in and in love fails. . . . • thwarting a husband. Women competed for his attention: if he did not When I had brought my want to seduce you, there had to be something wrong with you. To be the two belles to the state of abandonment in which I target of his attentions became a great fantasy. At one point two ladies The Rake • 21 fought a pistol duel over the duke, and one of them was seriously wanted them, I expressed a wounded. The Duchess d'Orléans, Richelieu's most bitter enemy, once more eager desire; their eyes lit up; my caresses wrote, "If I believed in sorcery I should think that the Duke possessed were returned; and it was some supernatural secret, for I have never known a woman to oppose the plain that their resistance very least resistance to him." would not delay for more than a few moments the next scene I desired them

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Over the next few months, women from every level of St. Petersburg closer to hers. She felt his society visited Rasputin in his apartment. He would talk to them of spiri- hot breath on her cheeks, tual matters, but then without warning he would turn sexual, murmuring and saw how his eyes, burning from the depths of the crassest come-ons. He would justify himself through spiritual dogma: their sockets, furtively roved how can you repent if you have not sinned? Salvation only comes to those over her helpless body, until who go astray. One of the few who rejected his advances was asked by a he dropped his lids with a sensuous expression. His friend, "How can one refuse anything to a saint?" "Does a saint need sinful voice had fallen to a love?" she replied. Her friend said, "He makes everything that comes near passionate whisper, and he him holy. I have already belonged to him, and I am proud and happy to murmured strange, voluptuous words in her have done so." "But you are married! What does your husband say?" "He ear. • Just as she was on considers it a very great honor. If Rasputin desires a woman we all think it the point of abandoning a blessing and a distinction, our husbands as well as ourselves." herself to her seducer, a memory stirred in her Rasputin's spell soon extended over Czar Nicholas and more particu- dimly and as if from some larly over his wife, the Czarina Alexandra, after he apparently healed their far distance; she recalled son from a life-threatening injury. Within a few years, he had become the that she had come to ask most powerful man in Russia, with total sway over the royal couple. him about God. —RENÉ FÜLÖP-MILLER, RASPUTIN: THE HOLY DEVIL People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society. The man who seems so noble and gentle is probably disguising a dark side, which will often come out in strange ways; if his nobility and refinement are in fact a put-on, sooner or later the truth will out, and his hypocrisy will disappoint and alienate. On the other hand, we are drawn to people who seem more comfortably human, who do not bother to disguise their contradictions. This was the source of Rasputin's charisma. A man so authenti-cally himself, so devoid of self-consciousness or hypocrisy, was immensely appealing. His wickedness and saintliness were so extreme that it made him seem larger than life. The result was a charismatic aura that was immediate and preverbal; it radiated from his eyes, and from the touch of his hands.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  I said nothing—I hadn’t known Marya, and anyway, “listening quietly” was my general social strategy. “Anyway,” Alaska said to me. “I thought the way he treated you was just awful. I wanted to cry. I just wanted to kiss you and make it better.” “Shame you didn’t,” I deadpanned, and they laughed. “You’re adorable,” she said, and I felt the intensity of her eyes on me and looked away nervously. “Too bad I love my boyfriend.” I stared at the knotted roots of the trees on the creek bank, trying hard not to look like I’d just been called adorable. Takumi couldn’t believe it either, and he walked over to me, tussling my hair with his hand, and started rapping to Alaska. “Yeah, Pudge is adorable / but you want incorrigible / so Jake is more endurable / ’cause he’s so—damn. Damn. I almost had four rhymes on adorable. But all I could think of was unfloorable, which isn’t even a word.” Alaska laughed. “That made me not be mad at you anymore. God, rapping is sexy. Pudge, did you even know that you’re in the presence of the sickest emcee in Alabama?” “Um, no.” “Drop a beat, Colonel Catastrophe,” Takumi said, and I laughed at the idea that a guy as short and dorky as the Colonel could have a rap name. The Colonel cupped his hands around his mouth and started making some absurd noises that I suppose were intended to be beats. Puh-chi. Puh-puhpuh-chi. Takumi laughed. “Right here, by the river, you want me to kick it? / If your smoke was a Popsicle, I’d surely lick it / My rhymin’ is old school, sort of like the ancient Romans / The Colonel’s beats is sad like Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman / Sometimes I’m accused of being a showman / ICanRhymeFast and I can rhyme slow, man.” He paused, took a breath, and then finished. “Like Emily Dickinson, I ain’t afraid of slant rhyme / And that’s the end of this verse; emcee’s out on a high.” I didn’t know slant rhyme from regular rhyme, but I was suitably impressed. We gave Takumi a soft round of applause. Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river. “Why do you smoke so damn fast?” I asked.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  liance with England by marrying his daughter to the son of the English wanted. . . . • Now, one king, James I. James seemed open to the idea, but he stalled for time. day, when Masetto Spain's ambassador to the English court, a man called Gondomar, was given happened to he taking a rest after a spell of the task of advancing Philip's plan. He set his sights on the king's favorite, strenuous work, he was the Duke (former Earl) of Buckingham. approached by two very Gondomar knew the duke's main weakness: vanity. Buckingham hun- young nuns who were out walking in the garden. gered for the glory and adventure that would add to his fame; he was bored Since he gave them the with his limited tasks, and he pouted and whined about this. The ambas- impression that he was sador first flattered him profusely—the duke was the ablest man in the asleep, they began to stare at him, and the bolder of country and it was a shame he was given so little to do. Then, he began to the two said to her whisper to him of a great adventure. The duke, as Gondomar knew, was in companion: • "If I could favor of the match with the Spanish princess, but these damned marriage be sure that you would keep it a secret, I would negotiations with King James were taking so long, and getting nowhere. tell you about an idea that What if the duke were to accompany the king's son, his good friend Prince has often crossed my mind, Charles, to Spain? Of course, this would have to be done in secret, without and one that might well guards or escorts, for the English government and its ministers would never work out to our mutual benefit." • "Do tell me," sanction such a trip. But that would make it all the more dangerous and ro-replied the other. "You can mantic. Once in Madrid, the prince could throw himself at Princess be quite certain that I Maria's feet, declare his undying love, and carry her back to England in tri- shan't talk about it to anyone. " • The bold one umph. What a chivalrous deed it would be and all for love. The duke began to speak more would get all the credit and it would make his name famous for centuries. plainly. • "I wonder," she The duke fell for the idea, and convinced Charles to go along; after said, "whether you have ever considered what a much arguing, they also convinced a reluctant King James. The trip was a strict life we have to lead, near disaster (Charles would have had to convert to Catholicism to win and how the only men who Maria), and the marriage never happened, but Gondomar had done his job. ever dare set foot in this place are the steward, who

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  manner infected women, lowering their resistance. This happened almost again: "Let any crime be the minute they met him, like a drug: he was at ease around women, grace-done to them which your ful and confident. They fell into this spirit, drifting along on a current he heart desires." "Go into that room," said Thubuit; created, leaving the world and its heaviness behind—it was only you and and while the little corpses him. Then—perhaps that same day, perhaps a few weeks later—there would were thrown out to the come a touch of his hand, a certain look, that would make them feel a tin-stray dogs and cats, Satni at last lay on a bed of ivory gling, a vibration, a dangerously physical excitement. They would betray and ebony, that his love that moment in their eyes, a blush, a nervous laugh, and he would swoop in might be rewarded, and for the kill. No one moved faster than Errol Flynn. Thubuit lay down at his side. "Then," the texts The greatest obstacle to the physical part of the seduction is the target's modestly say, "magic and education, the degree to which he or she has been civilized and socialized. the god Amen did much." Such education conspires to constrain the body, dull the senses, fill the • The charms of the Divine Women must have mind with doubts and worries. Flynn had the ability to return a woman to been irresistible, if even a more natural state, in which desire, pleasure, and sex had nothing negative "the wisest men" were attached to them. He lured women into adventure not with arguments but Use Physical Lures • 401 with an open, unrestrained attitude that infected their minds. Understand: ready to do anything in it all starts from you. When the time comes to make the seduction physical, their desire to abandon themselves, even for a few train yourself to let go of your own inhibitions, your doubts, your linger- moments, to their trained ing feelings of guilt and anxiety. Your confidence and ease will have more embraces. power to intoxicate the victim than all the alcohol you could apply. Exhibit —G. R.TABOUIS, THE PRIVATE a lightness of spirit—nothing bothers you, nothing daunts you, you take LIFE OF TUTANKHAMEN, nothing personally. You are inviting your targets to shed the burdens of T R A N S L A T E D B Y M . R . D O B I E civilization, to follow your lead and drift. Do not talk of work, duty, marriage, the past or future. Plenty of other people will do that. Instead, offer the rare thrill of losing oneself in the moment, where the senses come dive CÉLIE: What is the and the mind is left behind. moment, and how do you define it? Because I must say in all good honesty that When he kissed me, it evoked a response I had never I do not understand you. •

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Most of the physical elements are a construction; the key is the air of schoolgirl innocence. While one part of you seems to scream sex, the other part is coy and naive, as if you were in- capable of understanding the effect you are having. Your walk, your voice, your manner are delightfully ambiguous—you are both the experienced, desiring woman and the innocent gamine. Your next encounter will be with the Sirens, who bewitch every man that approaches them. . . . For with the music of their song the Sirens cast their spell upon him, as they sit there in a meadow piled high with the moldering skele- tons of men, whose withered skin still hangs upon their bones. —CIRCE TO ODYSSEUS, THE ODYSSEY, BOOK XII Keys to the Character T he Siren is the most ancient seductress of them all. Her prototype is the goddess Aphrodite—it is her nature to have a mythic quality about her—but do not imagine she is a thing of the past, or of legend and his- tory: she represents a powerful male fantasy of a highly sexual, supremely confident, alluring female offering endless pleasure and a bit of danger. In today's world this fantasy can only appeal the more strongly to the male psyche, for now more than ever he lives in a world that circumscribes his aggressive instincts by making everything safe and secure, a world that offers less chance for adventure and risk than ever before. In the past, a man had some outlets for these drives—warfare, the high seas, political intrigue. In the sexual realm, courtesans and mistresses were practically a social institu- herdsman, not a soldier," said Paris. . . . "But I promise to consider fairly your claim to the apple. Now you are at liberty to put on your clothes and helmet again. Is Aphrodite ready?" • Aphrodite sidled up to him, and Paris blushed because she came so close that they were almost touching. • "Look carefully, please, pass nothing over. . . . By the way, as soon as I saw you, I said to myself: 'Upon my word, there goes the handsomest young man in Phrygia! Why does he waste himself here in the wilderness herding stupid cattle?' Well, why do you, Paris? Why not move into a city and lead a civilized life? What have you to lose by marrying someone like Helen of Sparta, who is as beautiful as I am, and no less passionate? . . . I suggest now that you tour Greece with my son Eros as your guide. Once you reach Sparta, he and I will see that Helen falls head over heels in love with you." • "Would you swear to that?" Paris ashed excitedly. • Aphrodite uttered a solemn oath, and Paris, without a second thought, awarded her the golden apple. —ROBERT GRAVES, THE GREEK MYTHS, VOLUME I 12 • The Art of Seduction tion, and offered him the variety and the chase that he craved.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The Public was the only family, the only Prince Charming and the only home I had ever dreamed of." In front of a camera, Monroe suddenly came to life, flirting with and exciting her unseen public. If the audience does not sense this quality in you they will turn away from you. On the other hand, you must never seem manipulative or needy. Imagine your public as a single person whom you are trying to seduce—nothing is more seductive to people than the feeling that they are desired. Adventurousness. Charismatics are unconventional. They have an air of adventure and risk that attracts the bored. Be brazen and courageous in your actions—be seen taking risks for the good of others. Napoleon made sure his soldiers saw him at the cannons in battle. Lenin walked openly on the streets, despite the death threats he had received. Charismatics thrive in troubled waters; a crisis situation allows them to flaunt their daring, which enhances their aura. John F. Kennedy came to life in dealing with the Cuban missile crisis, Charles de Gaulle when he confronted rebellion in 102 • The Art of Seduction Algeria. They needed these problems to seem charismatic, and in fact some have even accused them of stirring up situations (Kennedy through his brinkmanship style of diplomacy, for instance) that played to their love of adventure. Show heroism to give yourself a charisma that will last you a lifetime. Conversely, the slightest sign of cowardice or timidity will ruin whatever charisma you had. Magnetism. If any physical attribute is crucial in seduction, it is the eyes. They reveal excitement, tension, detachment, without a word being spo- ken. Indirect communication is critical in seduction, and also in charisma. The demeanor of Charismatics may be poised and calm, but their eyes are magnetic; they have a piercing gaze that disturbs their targets' emotions, exerting force without words or action. Fidel Castro's aggressive gaze can reduce his opponents to silence. When Benito Mussolini was challenged, he would roll his eyes, showing the whites in a way that frightened people. President Kusnasosro Sukarno of Indonesia had a gaze that seemed as if it could have read thoughts. Roosevelt could dilate his pupils at will, making his stare both hypnotizing and intimidating. The eyes of the Charismatic never show fear or nerves. All of these skills are acquirable. Napoleon spent hours in front of a mirror, modeling his gaze on that of the great contemporary actor Talma. The key is self-control. The look does not necessarily have to be aggressive; it can also show contentment. Remember: your eyes can emanate charisma, but they can also give you away as a faker.

• From The Lover (1984)

  Inside the limousine there’s a very elegant man looking at me. He’s not a white man. He’s wearing European clothes—the light tussore suit of the Saigon bankers. He’s looking at me. I’m used to people looking at me. People do look at white women in the colonies; at twelve-year-old white girls too. For the past three years white men, too, have been looking at me in the streets, and my mother’s men friends have been kindly asking me to have tea with them while their wives are out playing tennis at the Sporting Club. • • • I could get it wrong, could think I’m beautiful like women who really are beautiful, like women who are looked at, just because people really do look at me a lot. I know it’s not a question of beauty, though, but of something else, for example, yes, something else—mind, for example. What I want to seem I do seem, beautiful too if that’s what people want me to be. Beautiful or pretty, pretty for the family for example, for the family no more than that. I can become anything anyone wants me to be. And believe it. Believe I’m charming too. And when I believe it, and it becomes true for anyone seeing me who wants me to be according to his taste, I know that too. And so I can be deliberately charming even though I’m haunted by the killing of my brother. In that death, just one accomplice, my mother. I use the word charming as people used to use it in relation to me, in relation to children.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  self-consciously memorable experience gains a weight and a significance that it would not otherwise have. Ed Diener and his team provided evidence that it is the remembering self that chooses vacations. They asked students to maintain daily diaries and record a daily evaluation of their experiences during spring break. The students also provided a global rating of the vacation when it had ended. Finally, they indicated whether or not they intended to repeat or not to repeat the vacation they had just had. Statistical analysis established that the intentions for future vacations were entirely determined by the final evaluation—even when that score did not accurately represent the quality of the experience that was described in the diaries. As in the cold-hand experiment, right or wrong, people choose by memory when they decide whether or not to repeat an experience. A thought experiment about your next vacation will allow you to observe your attitude to your experiencing self. At the end of the vacation, all pictures and videos will be destroyed. Furthermore, you will swallow a potion that will wipe out all your memories of the vacation. How would this prospect affect your vacation plans? How much would you be willing to pay for it, relative to a normally memorable vacation? While I have not formally studied the reactions to this scenario, my impression from discussing it with people is that the elimination of memories greatly reduces the value of the experience. In some cases, people treat themselves as they would treat another amnesic, choosing to maximize overall pleasure by returning to a place where they have been happy in the past. However, some people say that they would not bother to go at all, revealing that they care only about their remembering self, and care less about their amnesic experiencing self than about an amnesic stranger. Many point out that they would not send either themselves or another amnesic to climb mountains or trek through the jungle— because these experiences are mostly painful in real time and gain value from the expectation that both the pain and the joy of reaching the goal will be memorable. For another thought experiment, imagine you face a painful operation during which you will remain conscious. You are told you will scream in pain and beg the surgeon to stop. However, you are promised an amnesia-inducing drug that