Desire

Passages

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

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• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The film world and media create a galaxy of seductive stars and images. We are saturated in the seductive. But even if much has changed in degree and scope, the essence of seduction is constant: never be forceful or direct; instead, use pleasure as bait, playing on people's emotions, stirring desire and This important side-track, by which woman succeeded confusion, inducing psychological surrender. In seduction as it is practiced in evading man's strength today, the methods of Cleopatra still hold. and establishing herself in power, has not been given due consideration by People are constantly trying to influence us, to tell us what to do, and just historians. From the as often we tune them out, resisting their attempts at persuasion. There is a moment when the woman moment in our lives, however, when we all act differently—when we are in detached herself from the crowd, an individual love. We fall under a kind of spell. Our minds are usually preoccupied with finished product, offering our own concerns; now they become filled with thoughts of the loved one. delights which could not be We grow emotional, lose the ability to think straight, act in foolish ways obtained by force, but only that we would never do otherwise. If this goes on long enough something by flattery . . . . the reign of love's priestesses was inside us gives way: we surrender to the will of the loved one, and to our inaugurated. It was a desire to possess them. development of far-reaching Seducers are people who understand the tremendous power contained importance in the history of civilization. . . . Only by in such moments of surrender. They analyze what happens when people the circuitous route of the are in love, study the psychological components of the process—what spurs art of love could woman the imagination, what casts a spell. By instinct and through practice they again assert authority, and this she did by asserting master the art of making people fall in love. As the first seductresses knew, herself at the very point at it is much more effective to create love than lust. A person in love is emo- which she would normally tional, pliable, and easily misled. (The origin of the word "seduction" is the be a slave at the man's mercy. She had discovered Latin for "to lead astray") A person in lust is harder to control and, once the might of lust, the secret satisfied, may easily leave you. Seducers take their time, create enchantment of the art of love, the and the bonds of love, so that when sex ensues it only further enslaves daemonic power of a the victim. Creating love and enchantment becomes the model for all passion artificially aroused and never satiated. The seductions—sexual, social, political. A person in love will surrender. force tints unchained was

• 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)

  her 'twas not his way to at all saintly. And humility may have its social uses, but it is deadly in seduc-love à l'espagnole, with tion. You need to be able to play the humble saint at times; it is a mask you eyes and tricks of face and wear. But in seduction, take it off. Boldness is bracing, erotic, and ab-words, but in the genuine fashion and proper mode solutely necessary to bring the seduction to its conclusion. Done right, it every true lover should tells your targets that they have made you lose your normal restraint, and desire. Presently having gives them license to do so as well. People are yearning to have a chance to finished his task, he doth play out the repressed sides of their personality. At the final stage of a se-quit the chamber; but as he goes, saith to his brother, duction, boldness eliminates any awkwardness or doubts. In a dance, two loud enough for his lady to people cannot lead. One takes over, sweeping the other along. Seduction is hear the words: "Do you not egalitarian; it is not a harmonic convergence. Holding back at the end as I have done, brother mine; else you do naught at out of fear of offending, or thinking it correct to share the power, is a all. Be you as brave and recipe for disaster. This is an arena not for politics but for pleasure. It can be hardy as you will else- by the man or woman, but a bold move is required. If you are so con-where, yet if you show not your hardihood here and cerned about the other person, console yourself with the thought that now, you are disgraced; for the pleasure of the one who surrenders is often greater than that of the here is no place of cere- aggressor. mony and respect, but one As a young man, the actor Errol Flynn was uncontrollably bold. This where you do see your lady before you, which doth but often got him into trouble; he became too aggressive around desirable wait your attack." So with women. Then, while traveling through the Far East, he became interested this he did leave his brother, in the Asian practice of tantric sex, in which the male must train himself which yet for that while did refrain him and put it off to not to ejaculate, preserving his potency and heightening both partners' another time. But for this pleasure in the process. Flynn later applied this principle to his seductions as the lady did by no means well, teaching himself to restrain his natural boldness and delay the end of esteem him more highly,

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  "My admirers all said the same thing in differ- ent ways," she wrote. "It was my fault, their wanting to kiss me and hug me. Some said it was the way I looked at them—with eyes full of passion. Others said it was my voice that lured them on. Still others said I gave off vibrations that floored them." of an abyss . . . ? Seduction lies in the annulment of signs and their meaning, in pure appearance. The eyes that seduce have no meaning, they end in the gaze, as the face with makeup ends in only pure appearance. . . . The scent of the panther is also a meaningless message—and behind the message the panther is invisible, as is the woman beneath her makeup. The Sirens too remained unseen. The enchantment lies in what is hidden. —JEAN BAUDRILLARD, DE LA SÉDUCTION We're dazzled by feminine adornment, by the surface, \ All gold and jewels: so little of what we observe \ Is the girl herself And where (you may ask) amid such plenty \ Can our object of passion be found? The eye's deceived \ By Love's smart camouflage. —OVID, CURES FOR LOVE, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN He was herding his cattle on Mount Gargarus, the highest peak of Ida, when Hermes, accompanied by Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite delivered the golden apple and Zeus's message: "Paris, since you are as handsome as you are wise in affairs of the heart, Zeus commands you to judge which of these goddesses is the fairest. " • "So be it," sighed Paris. "But first I beg the losers not to be vexed with me. I am only a human being, liable to make the stupidest 10 • The Art of Seduction A few years later Marilyn was trying to make it in the film business. Producers would tell her the same thing: she was attractive enough in per- son, but her face wasn't pretty enough for the movies. She was getting work as an extra, and when she was on-screen—even if only for a few sec- onds—the men in the audience would go wild, and the theaters would erupt in catcalls. But nobody saw any star quality in this. One day in 1949, only twenty-three at the time and her career at a standstill, Monroe met someone at a diner who told her that a producer casting a new Groucho Marx movie, Love Happy, was looking for an actress for the part of a blond bombshell who could walk by Groucho in a way that would, in his words, "arouse my elderly libido and cause smoke to issue from my ears." Talking her way into an audition, she improvised this walk. "It's Mae West, Theda Bara, and Bo Peep all rolled into one," said Groucho after watching her saunter by.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  honied in on a victim, he dropped everything else. The woman was made drifts to me \ Are mingled to feel that everything came second to her—his career, his friends, every-odors of the tamarind, \ thing. Then he would take her on a little trip, preferably with water — A n d all my soul is scent and melody. around. Slowly the rest of the world would fade into the background, and — C H A R L E S BAUDELAIRE, Flynn would take center stage. The more your targets think of you, the less " E X O T I C PERFUME," they are distracted by thoughts of work and duty. When the mind focuses THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, on one thing it relaxes, and when the mind relaxes, all the little paranoid TRANSLATED BY ALAN CONDER thoughts that we are prone to—do you really like me, am I intelligent or beautiful enough, what does the future hold—vanish from the surface. Remember: it all starts with you. Be undistracted, present in the moment, and the target will follow suit. The intense gaze of the hypnotist creates a similar reaction in the patient. Once the target's overactive mind starts to slow down, their senses will come to life, and your physical lures will have double their power. Now a heated glance will give them flush. You will have a tendency to employ physical lures that work primarily on the eyes, the sense we most rely on in our culture. Physical appearances are critical, but you are after a general agitation of the senses. La Belle Otero made sure men noticed her breasts, her figure, her perfume, her walk; no part was allowed to predominate. The senses are interconnected—an appeal to smell will trigger touch, an appeal to touch will trigger vision: casual or "accidental" contact—better a brushing of the skin than something more forceful right now—will create a jolt and activate the eyes. Subtly modulate the voice, make it slower and deeper. Living senses will crowd out rational thought. In the eighteenth-century libertine novel The Wayward Head and Heart, by Crébillon fils, Madame de Lursay is trying to seduce a younger man, Meilcour. Her weapons are several. One night at a party she is hosting, she wears a revealing gown; her hair is slightly tousled; she throws him heated glances; her voice trembles a bit. When they are alone, she innocently gets him to sit close to her, and talks more slowly; at one point she starts to cry. Meilcour has many reasons to resist her; he has fallen in love with a girl his own age, and he has heard rumors about Madame de Lursay that should make him distrust her. But the clothes, the looks, the perfume, the voice, the closeness of her body, the tears—it all begins to overwhelm him. "An indescribable agitation stirred my senses." Meilcour succumbs.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  literary academy devoted to ideas of freethinking. She called herself a muse Achilles sulks for Briseis— and, as in Rome, a group of young men collected around her. They would \ Quick, Trojans, smash follow her around the city, carving her name in trees, writing sonnets in her through the Argive wall! \ Hector went into battle honor, and singing them to anyone who would listen. from Andromache's One young nobleman was driven to distraction by this cult of adora- embraces \ Helmeted by his tion: it seemed that everyone loved Tullia but no one received her love in wife. \ Agamemnon return. Determined to steal her away and marry her, this young man himself, the Supremo, was struck into raptures \ At tricked her into allowing him to visit her at night. He proclaimed his undy- the sight of Cassandra's ing devotion, showered her with jewels and presents, and asked for her tumbled hair; \ Even Mars hand. She refused. He pulled out a knife, she still refused, and so he stabbed was caught on the job, felt the blacksmith's meshes— himself. He lived, but now Tullia's reputation was even greater than before: \ Heaven's best scandal in not even money could buy her favors, or so it seemed. As the years went years. Then take \ My own by and her beauty faded, some poet or intellectual would always come to case. I was idle, born to leisure en deshabille, \ her defense and protect her. Few of them ever pondered the reality: that Mind softened by lazy Tullia was indeed a courtesan, one of the most popular and well paid in the scribbling in the shade. \ profession. But love for a pretty girl soon drove the sluggard \ To action, made him join up. \And just look at me Interpretation. All of us have defects of some sort. Some of these we are now—f ighting fit, dead born with, and cannot help. Tullia had many such defects. Physically she keen on night exercises: \ If you want a cure for was not the Renaissance ideal. Also, her mother had been a courtesan, and slackness, fall in love! she was illegitimate. Yet the men who fell under her spell did not care. —OVID, THE AMORES, They were too distracted by her image—the image of an elevated woman, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN a woman you would have to fight over to win. Her pose came straight out of the Middle Ages, the days of knights and troubadours. Then, a woman, most often married, was able to control the power dynamic between the sexes by withholding her favors until the knight somehow proved his worth 332 • The Art of Seduction and the sincerity of his sentiments. He could be sent on a quest, or made to live among lepers, or compete in a possibly fatal joust for her honor.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  crept up the stairs, and peeked through the crack in the door: it was Diet-ivory was all it was. He rich taking pictures of herself in the mirror, studying her face from every kissed the statue, and imagined that it kissed him angle. back, spoke to it and embraced it, and thought Marlene Dietrich had a distance from her own self: she could study her he felt his fingers sink into the limbs he touched, so face, her legs, her body, as if she were someone else. This gave her the that he was afraid lest a ability to mold her look, transforming her appearance for effect. She could bruise appear where he had pose in just the way that would most excite a man, her blankness letting pressed the flesh. him see her according to his fantasy, whether of sadism, voluptuousness, or Sometimes he addressed it in flattering speeches, danger. And every man who met her, or who watched her on screen, fan-sometimes brought the kind tasized endlessly about her. The effect worked on women as well; in the of presents that girls words of one writer, she projected "sex without gender." But this self-enjoy. . . . He dressed the limbs of his statue in distance gave her a certain coldness, whether on film or in person. She was woman's robes, and put like a beautiful object, something to fetishize and admire the way we adrings on its fingers, long mire a work of art. necklaces round its neck. . . . All this finery The fetish is an object that commands an emotional response and that became the image well, but makes us breathe life into it. Because it is an object we can imagine what-it was no less lovely ever we want to about it. Most people are too moody, complex, and reac-unadorned. Pygmalion then placed the statue on a tive to let us see them as objects that we can fetishize. The power of the couch that was covered with Fetishistic Star comes from an ability to become an object, and not just any cloths of Tynan purple, object but an object we fetishize, one that stimulates a variety of fantasies. laid its head to rest on soft Fetishistic Stars are perfect, like the statue of a Greek god or goddess. The down pillows, as if it could appreciate them, and called effect is startling, and seductive. Its principal requirement is self-distance. If it his bedfellow. • The you see yourself as an object, then others will too. An ethereal, dreamlike festival of Venus, which is air will heighten the effect. celebrated with the greatest The Star • 123 You are a blank screen. Float through life noncommittally and people pomp all through Cyprus, will want to seize you and consume you. Of all the parts of your body that was now in progress, and heifers, their crooked horns

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  In 1813, an old friend of Byron's, James Webster, invited the poet to stay at his country estate. Webster had a young and beautiful wife, Lady — O V I D , T H E A M O R E S , TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN Frances, and he knew Byron's reputation as a seducer, but his wife was quiet and chaste—surely she would resist the temptation of a man such as Byron. To Webster's relief, Byron barely spoke to Frances, who seemed equally uninterested in him. Yet several days into Byron's stay, she contrived It is often not possible for [ women] later on to undo to be alone with him in the billiards room, where she asked him a question: the connection thus formed how could a woman who liked a man inform him of it when he did not in their minds between perceive it? Byron scribbled a racy reply on a piece of paper, which made sensual activities and her blush as she read it. Soon thereafter he invited the couple to stay with something forbidden, and they turn out to be him at his infamous abbey. There, the prim and proper Lady Frances saw psychically impotent, i.e. him drink wine from a human skull. They stayed up late in one of the frigid, when at last such abbey's secret chambers, reading poetry and kissing. With Byron, it seemed, activities do become permissible. This is the Lady Frances was only too eager to explore adultery. source of the desire in so That same year, Lord Byron's half sister Augusta arrived in London to many women to keep even get away from her husband, who was having money troubles. Byron had legitimate relations secret for a time; and of the not seen Augusta for some time. The two were physically similar—the appearance of the capacity same face, the same mannerisms; she was Lord Byron as a woman. And his for normal sensation in behavior toward her was more than brotherly. He took her to the theater, others as soon as the to dances, received her at home, treating her with an intimate spirit that condition of prohibition is restored by a secret Augusta soon returned. Indeed the kind and tender attention that Byron intrigue— untrue to the showered on her soon became physical. husband, they can keep a Augusta was a devoted wife with three children, yet she yielded to her second order of faith with the lover. • In my opinion half brother's advances. How could she help herself? He stirred up a strange the necessary condition of passion in her, a stronger passion than she felt for any other man, including forbiddenness in the erotic her husband. For Byron, his relationship with Augusta was the ultimate and life of women holds the same place as the man's crowning sin of his career. And soon he was writing to his friends, openly Stir Up the Transgressive and Taboo • 353

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  she enjoyed herself so much and was so unrestrained that none of that mat- Otero had been the tered. Jurgens also could not help but notice the men in the cabaret watch- headliner there for several weeks and although I ing her, their mouths agape. knew who she was I had After the show, Jurgens went backstage to introduce himself. Otero's never seen her before on eyes came alive as he spoke of his job and of New York. He felt a heat, a stage or off • "I was scurrying along, head bent, twitching, in his body as she looked him up and down. Her voice was deep thinking of something or and raspy, the tongue constantly in play as she rolled her Rs. Closing the other, when I looked up. door, Otero ignored the knocks and pleas of the admirers dying to speak to There was La Belle, in the her. She said that her way of dancing was natural—her mother was a gypsy, company of another woman, walking in my Soon she asked Jurgens to be her escort that evening, and as he helped her direction. Otero was then with her coat, she leaned back toward him slightly, as if she had lost her nearly forty and I was not balance. As they walked around the city, her arm in his, she would occa- yet out of my teens but— ah! —s he was so beautiful! sionally whisper in his ear. Jurgens felt his usual reserve melt away. He held • "She was tall, dark-her tighter. He was a family man, had never considered cheating on his haired, with a magnificent wife, but without thinking, he brought Otero back to his hotel room. She body, like the bodies of the began to take off some of her clothes—coat, gloves, hat—a perfectly nor- women of those days, not like the lightweight ones of mal thing to do, but the way she did it made him lose all restraint. The nor- today." • Chevalier smiled. mally timid Jurgens went on the attack. • "Of course I like modern The next morning Jurgens signed Otero to a lucrative contract—a great women, too, but there was something of a fatal charm risk, considering that she was an amateur at best. He brought her to Paris about Otero. We three and assigned a top theatrical coach to her. Hurrying back to New York, he stood there for a moment or fed the newspapers with reports of this mysterious Spanish beauty poised to two, not saying a word, I staring at La Belle, not so conquer the city. Soon rival papers were claiming she was an Andalusian young as she once was and countess, an escaped harem girl, the widow of a sheik, on and on. He maybe not so beautiful, but 395 396 • The Art of Seduction still quite a woman. • made frequent trips to Paris to be with her, forgetting about his family, lav- "She looked right at me,

• 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)

  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. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires. T h e Natural page 53 Childhood is the golden paradise we are always consciously or unconsciously trying to re-create. The Natural embodies the longed-for qualities of childhood—s pontaneity, sincerity, unpretentiousness. In the presence of Naturals, we feel at ease, caught up in their playful spirit, transported back to that golden age. Adopt the pose of the Natural to neutralize people's defensivencss and infect them with helpless delight. The Coquette page 67 The ability to delay satisfaction is the ultimate art of seduction—w hile waiting, the victim is held in thrall. Coquettes are the grand masters of the game, orchestrating a back-and-forth movement between hope and frustration. They bait with the promise of reward— the hope of physical pleasure, happiness, fame by association, power— all of which, however, proves elusive; yet this only makes their targets pursue them the more. Imitate the alternating heat and coolness of the Coquette and you will keep the seduced at your heels. The Charmer page 79 Charm is seduction without sex. Charmers are consummate manipulators, masking their cleverness by creating a mood of pleasure and comfort. Their method is simple: They deflect attention from themselves and focus it on their target. They understand your spirit, feel your pain, adapt to your moods. In the presence of a Charmer you feel better about yourself. Learn to cast the Charmer's spell by aiming at people's primary weaknesses: vanity and self-esteem. The Charismatic page 95 Charisma is a presence that excites us. It comes from an inner quality—s elf-confidence, sexual energy, sense of purpose, contentment— that most people lack and want. This quality radiates outward, permeating the gestures of Charismatics, making them seem extraordinary and superior. They learn to heighten their charisma with a piercing gaze, fiery oratory, an air of mystery. Create the charismatic illusion by radiating intensity while remaining detached. The Star page 119 Daily life is harsh, and most of us constantly seek escape from it in fantasies and dreams. Stars feed on this weakness; standing out from others through a distinctive and appealing style, they make us want to watch them. At the same time, they are vague and ethereal, keeping their distance, and letting us imagine more than is there. Their dreamlike quality works on our unconscious. Learn to become an object of fascination by projecting the glittering but elusive presence of the Star. Contents • xiii The Anti-Seducer page 131

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  And sorely. When I thought about it, it did seem as if Bennett knew everything about life except that having fun ought to be part of it. Life was a long disease to be cured by psychoanalysis. You might not cure it, but eventually you’d die anyway. The base of the couch would rise around you and become a coffin, and six black-suited analysts would carry you off (and throw jargon on your open grave). Bennett knew about part objects and whole objects, Oedipus and Electra, school phobia and claustrophobia, impotence and frigidity, patricide and matricide, penis envy and womb envy, working through and free association, mourning and melancholia, intrapsychic conflict and extrapsychic conflict, nosology and etiology, senile dementia and dementia praecox, projection and introjection, self-analysis and group-therapy, symptom formation and symptom exacerbation, amnesiac states and fugue states, pathological weeping and laughter in dreams, insomnia and excessive sleeping, neurosis and psychosis until they were coming out of your ears, but he did not seem to know about laughing and joking, wisecracking and punning, hugging and kissing, singing and dancing—all the things, in short, which made life worthwhile. As if you could will life to be happy through analysis. As if you could get along without laughter as long as you had analysis. Adrian had laughter, and at that point I was ready to sell my soul for it. The smile. Who was it who said that the smile is the secret of life? Adrian had an antic grin. I too laughed all the time. When we were together we felt we could conquer anything merely by laughing. “You have to get away from him,” Bennett said, “and back into analysis. He’s not good for you.” “You’re right,” I said. What was that I had just said? You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. Bennett was right and Adrian was also right. Men have always liked me because I agree with them. Not just lip service either. At the moment I say it, I really do agree. “Let’s go back to New York right after the Congress is over.” “OK,” I said, meaning it. I looked at Bennett and thought how well I knew him. He was serious and sober almost to the point of madness at times, but it was also that which I loved about him. His utter dependability. His belief that life was a puzzle which could ultimately be figured out through hard work and determination. I shared that with him as much as I shared laughter with Adrian. I loved Bennett and knew it. I knew my life was with him, not with Adrian.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Charlie and I broke up soon after our reunion. It seems I could never forgive his ambivalence, though, in fact, I now see it was very like my own, and perhaps I should have been more understanding. Alessandro kept writing from Florence with talk of “divorzio,” but I had seen too many Italian movies to believe him. “Michelangelo” turned up once and looked so much worse in the polluted sunlight of New York that I hadn’t the heart to continue. The brown and amber shades of Florence had done wonders for him—as any E. M. Forster fan can readily understand. September and October were grim and dreary. I went out with a depressing assortment of divorcés, mama’s boys, neurotics, psychotics, and shrinks. I was only able to keep my spirits up by describing them all in bitchy detail in my letters to Pia. Then, in November, Bennett Wing waltzed into my life looking like the solution to all my problems. Silent as the Sphinx and very gentle. Savior and psychiatrist all in one. I fell into marriage the way (in Europe) I had fallen into bed. It looked like a soft bed; the nails were underneath. FIFTEENTravels with My Antihero I want! I want! —William Blake Itold Adrian everything. My whole hysterical history of searching for the impossible man and finding myself always right back where I started: inside my own head. I impersonated my sisters for him, my mother, my father, my grandparents, my husband, my friends…. We drove and talked and drove and talked. “What’s your prognosis?” I asked, ever the patient in search of the perfect doctor. “You’re due for a bit of a reshuffle, ducks,” Adrian kept saying. “You have to go down into yourself and salvage your own life.” Wasn’t I already doing that? What was this crazy itinerary if not a trip back into my past? “You haven’t gone deep enough yet,” he said. “You have to hit rock bottom and then climb back up.” “Jesus! I feel like I already have!” Adrian smirked his beautiful smirk with the pipe tucked between his curling pink lips. “You haven’t hit rock bottom yet,” he said, as if he knew some of the surprises in store. “Are you going to take me there?” I asked. “If you insist, love.” It was his magnificent indifference which infuriated me, turned me on, made me wild with frustration. Despite his cuddling and ass-grabbing, Adrian was so cool. I used to stare and stare at that beautiful profile wondering what in the world was happening in his head and why I couldn’t seem to fathom it. “I want to get inside your head,” I said, “and I can’t. It’s driving me crazy.” “But why do you want to get inside my head? What do you think that will solve?” “It’s just that I want to really feel close to someone, united with someone, whole for once. I want to really love someone.” “What makes you think love solves anything?”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  This quality radiates outward, drawing others to them, and, in a circular process, making people spoil them still more. Since their spirit and natural energy were never tamed by a disciplining parent, as adults they are adventurous and bold, and often impish or brazen. The lesson is simple: it may be too late to be spoiled by a parent, but it is never too late to make other people spoil you. It is all in your attitude. People are drawn to those who expect a lot out of life, whereas they tend to disrespect those who are fearful and undemanding. Wild independence has a provocative effect on us: it appeals to us, while also presenting us with a challenge—we want to be the one to tame it, to make the spirited person dependent on us. Half of seduction is stirring such competitive desires. 3. In October of 1925, Paris society was all excited about the opening of the Revue Negre. Jazz, or in fact anything that came from black America, All was quiet again. (Genji slipped the latch open and tried the doors. They had not been bolted. A curtain had been set up just inside, and in the dim light he could make out Chinese chests and other furniture scattered in some disorder. He made his way through to her side. She lay by herself, a slight little figure. Though vaguely annoyed at being disturbed, she evidently took him for the woman Chujo until he pulled back the covers. • ... His manner was so gently persuasive that devils and demons could not have gainsaid him. • ... She was so small that he lifted her easily. As he passed through the doors to his own room, he came upon Chujo who had been summoned earlier. He called out in surprise. Surprised in turn, Chujo peered into the darkness. The perfume that came from his robes like a cloud of smoke told her who he was. . . . [Chujo] followed after, but Genji was quite unmoved by her pleas. • "Come for her in the morning," he said, sliding the doors closed. • The lady was bathed in perspiration and quite beside herself at the thought of what Chujo, and the others too, would be thinking. Genji had to feel sorry for her. Yet the sweet words poured forth, the whole gamut of pretty devices for making a woman surrender. . . . • One may imagine that he found many kind promises with which to comfort her. . . . —MURASAKI SHIKIBU, THE TALE OF GENJI, TRANSLATED BY EDWARD G.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  She seemed relaxed, and Valmont sat near her on a sofa. He talked of his love for her. She gave the faintest protest. He took her hand; she left it there and leaned against his arm. Her voice trembled. She looked at him, and he felt his heart flutter—it was a tender, loving look. She started to speak—"Well! yes, I . . ."—then suddenly collapsed into his arms, crying. It was a moment of weakness, yet Valmont held himself back. Her crying be- came convulsive; she begged him to help her, to leave the room before something terrible happened. He did so. The following morning he awoke to some surprising news: in the middle of the night, claiming she was feel- ing ill, Tourvel had suddenly left the château and returned home. Valmont did not follow her to Paris. Instead he began staying up late, and using no powder to hide the peaked looks that soon ensued. He went to the chapel every day, and dragged himself despondently around the château. He knew that his hostess would be writing to the Présidente, who would hear of his sad state. Next he wrote to a church father in Paris, and asked him to pass along a message to Tourvel: he was ready to change his life for good. He wanted one last meeting, to say goodbye and to return the letters she had written him over the last few months. The father arranged a It afforded, moreover, another advantage: that of observing at my leisure her charming face, more beautiful than ever, as it proffered the powerful enticement of tears. My blood was on fire, and I was so little in control of myself that I was tempted to make the most of the occasion. • How weak we must be, how strong the dominion of circumstance, if even I, without a thought for my plans, could risk losing all the charm of a prolonged struggle, all the fascination of a laboriously administered defeat, by concluding a premature victory; if distracted by the most puerile of desires, I could be willing that the conqueror of Madame de Tourvel should take nothing for the fruit of his labors but the tasteless distinction of having added one more name to the roll. Ah, let her surrender, but let her fight! Let her be too weak to prevail but strong enough to resist; let her savor the knowledge of her weakness at her leisure, but let her be unwilling to admit defeat. Leave the 407 408 • The Art of Seduction meeting, and so, one late afternoon in Paris, Valmont found himself once again alone with Tourvel, in a room in her house. The Présidente was clearly on edge; she could not look him in the eye. They exchanged pleasantries, but then Valmont turned harsh: she had treated him cruelly, had apparently been determined to make him unhappy.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  I want my learned readers to participate in the scene I am about to replay; I want them to examine its every detail and see for themselves how careful, how chaste, the whole wine-sweet event is if viewed with what my lawyer has called, in a private talk we have had, “impartial sympathy.” So let us get started. I have a difficult job before me. Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: Sunday morning in June. Place: sunlit living room. Props: old, candy-striped davenport, magazines, phonograph, Mexican knickknacks (the late Mr. Harold E. Haze—God bless the good man—had engendered my darling at the siesta hour in a blue-washed room, on a honeymoon trip to Vera Cruz, and mementoes, among these Dolores, were all over the place). She wore that day a pretty print dress that I had seen on her once before, ample in the skirt, tight in the bodice, short-sleeved, pink, checkered with darker pink, and, to complete the color scheme, she had painted her lips and was holding in her hollowed hands a beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple. She was not shod, however, for church. And her white Sunday purse lay discarded near the phonograph. My heart beat like a drum as she sat down, cool skirt ballooning, subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her glossy fruit. She tossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and caught it—it made a cupped polished plop. Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  That “initial shiver of inspiration” resulted in a novella, the Enchanter (Volshebnik), written in Russian in 1939 and published posthumously in a translation by Dmitri Nabokov. 13 In the first of the two passages below, the “enchanter” sees the young girl for the first time in what might be the Tuileries Gardens: A violet-clad girl of twelve (he never erred), was treading rapidly and firmly on skates that did not roll but crunched on the gravel as she raised and lowered them with little Japanese steps and approached his bench through the variable luck of the sunlight. Subsequently (for as long as the sequel lasted), it seemed to him that right away, at that very moment, he had appreciated all of her from tip to toe: the liveliness of her russet curls (recently trimmed); the radiance of her large, slightly vacuous eyes, somehow suggesting translucent gooseberries; her merry, warm complexion; her pink mouth, slightly open so that two large front teeth barely rested on the protuberance of the lower lip; the summery tint of her bare arms with the sleek little foxlike hairs running along the forearms; the indistinct tenderness of her still narrow but already not quite flat chest; the way the folds of her skirt moved; their succinctness and soft concavities; the slenderness and glow of her uncaring legs; the coarse straps of the skates. She stopped in front of his garrulous neighbor, who turned away to rummage in something lying to her right, then produced a slice of bread with a piece of chocolate on it and handed it to the girl. The latter, chewing rapidly, used her free hand to undo the straps and with them the entire weighty mass of the steel soles and solid wheels. Then, returning to earth among the rest of us, she stood up with an instantaneous sensation of heavenly barefootedness, not immediately recognizable as the feel of skateless shoes, and went off, now hesitantly, now with easy strides, until finally (probably because she had done with the bread) she took off at full tilt, swinging her liberated arms, flashing in and out of sight, mingling with a kindred play of light beneath the violet-and-green trees. (pp. 26–28) The “enchanter” makes no sexual advances until the final pages, soon after the girl’s mother has died: “Is this where I’m going to sleep?” the girl asked indifferently, and when, struggling with the shutters, squeezing tight their eyelike chinks, he replied affirmatively, she took a look at the cap she was holding and limply tossed it on the wide bed. “There we are,” said he after the old man had dragged in their suitcases and left, and there remained in the room only the pounding of his heart and the distant throbbing of the night. “There, now it’s time for bed.”

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  He became grave but not angry. He held her by the shoulders, and then he looked at her swollen breasts. The little brass bells shivered as she breathed. She felt his hands between her legs, and then his fingers inside of her, stroking her in an upward motion that caused her to twist her body with the pleasure of it. "This is all you are to think about, this is all you are to be," he said. "In some former life, you were many things, a lovely face, a lovely voice, an obedient daughter. You've shed that skin as if it were a cloak of dreams, and now you think of these portions of yourself only." He stroked her pubic lips, he widened her vagina. And then he squeezed her breasts almost cruelly. "This is you now, all of you. And your lovely face, only because it is the lovely face of a naked and helpless slave." Then, as if he could not resist, he embraced her and carried her to the bed. "In a little while, I must take wine with the Court, and you will serve me there, demonstrating your obedience to everyone. But that can wait..." "O, yes, my Prince, if it pleases you," she breathed the words so low he might not have heard. She was lying on the jeweled coverlet, and though her buttocks and legs were not as raw as they had been the night before, she felt the painful prickling of the jewels. The Prince knelt over her straddling her, and then opened her mouth with his fingers, and showing her his hard penis, drove it into her mouth with a quick downward motion. She sucked on it, drew on it. Yet all she need do was lie back helpless for he made the strong thrusts himself, into her, and she closed her eyes, smelling the delicious fragrance of his pubic hair, and tasting the saltiness of his skin, the penis nudging the back of her throat again and again as it all but bruised her lips. She was moaning in time with its movements, and when suddenly he drew himself out, she gasped, her hands up to embrace him. But he had lain down on her full length, parted her legs, and pulled away the brass bells. Her pubic lips ached as he did so. He drove into her. She felt herself explode with pleasure, her back arched so rigidly that she lifted his weight with her. Her body was drenched in pleasure. She thrust with her hips in almost a snapping motion, and when he came at last, he gave her cruel thrusts until he lay exhausted. It seemed she slept; she dreamed. And then she heard him say to someone standing there: "Take her away, wash her, adorn her.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  He was smiling at me the way a man smiles when he’s lying on top of you after a particularly good lay. “You’ve got to be an analyst,” I said, “nobody else would throw the word paranoid around so freely.” He grinned. He was wearing a very thin white cotton Indian kurtah and I could see his reddish-blond chest hair curling underneath it. “Cheeky cunt,” he said. Then he grabbed a fistful of my ass and gave it a long playful squeeze. “You’ve a lovely ass,” he said. “Come, I’ll see to it that you get into the conference.” Of course he turned out to have no authority whatsoever in the matter, but I didn’t know that till later. He was bustling around so officiously that you’d have thought he was the head of the whole Congress. He was chairman of one of the preconferences—but he had absolutely nothing to say about Press. Who cared about Press, anyway? All I wanted was for him to press my ass again. I would have followed him anywhere. Dachau, Auschwitz, anywhere. I looked across the registration desk and saw Bennett talking seriously with another analyst from New York. The Englishman had made his way into the crowd and was grilling the registration girl in my behalf. Then he walked back to me. “Look—she says you have to wait and talk to Rodney Lehmann. He’s a friend of mine from London and he ought to be here any minute so why don’t we walk across to the café, have a beer, and look for him?” “Let me just tell my husband,” I said. It was going to become something of a refrain in the next few days. He seemed glad to hear that I had a husband. At least he didn’t seem sorry. I asked Bennett if he’d come across the street to the café and meet us (hoping, of course, that he wouldn’t come too soon) and he waved me off. He was busy talking about countertransference. I followed the smoke from the Englishman’s pipe down the steps and across the street. He puffed along like a train, the pipe seeming to propel him. I was happy to be his caboose. We set ourselves up in the café, with a quarter liter of white wine for me and a beer for him. He was wearing Indian sandals and dirty toenails. He didn’t look like a shrink at all. “Where are you from?” “New York.” “I mean your ancestors.” “Why do you want to know?” “Why are you dodging my question?” “I don’t have to answer your question.” “I know.” He puffed his pipe and looked off into the distance. The corners of his eyes crinkled into about a hundred tiny lines and his mouth curled up in a sort of smile even when he wasn’t smiling.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Bennett and I met at a party in the Village where neither of us knew the hostess. We’d both been invited by other people. It was very mid-sixties chic. The hostess was black (you still said “Negro” then) and in some fashionable sell-out profession like advertising. She was all gotten up in designer clothes and gold eye shadow. The place was filled with shrinks and advertising people and social workers and NYU professors who looked like shrinks. 1965: pre- hippie and pre-ethnic. The analysts and advertising men and professors still had short hair and tortoiseshell glasses. They still shaved. The token blacks still pressed their hair. (O remembrance of things past!) I was there through a friend and so was Bennett. Since my first husband had been psychotic, it seemed quite natural to want to marry a psychiatrist the second time around. As an antidote, say. I was not going to let the same thing happen to me again. This time I was going to find someone who had the key to the unconscious. So I was hanging out with shrinks. They fascinated me because I assumed they knew everything worth knowing. I fascinated them because they assumed I was a “creative person” (as evidenced by the fact that I had appeared on Channel 13 reading my poems—what more evidence of creativity could a shrink need?). When I look back on my not yet thirty-year-old life, I see all my lovers sitting alternately back to back as if in a game of musical chairs. Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound. Brian Stollerman (my first lover and first husband) was very short, inclined to paunchiness, hairy and dark. He was also a human cannonball and a nonstop talker. He was always in motion, always spewing out words of five syllables. He was a medievalist and before you could say “Albigensian Crusade” he’d tell you the story of his life—in extravagantly exaggerated detail. Brian gave the impression of never shutting up. This was not quite true, though, because he did stop talking when he slept. But when he finally flipped his cookies (as we politely said in my immediate family) or showed symptoms of schizophrenia (as one of his many psychiatrists put it) or woke up to the real meaning of his life (as he put it) or had a nervous breakdown (as his Ph.D. thesis adviser put it) or became-exhausted-as-a-result-of-being-married-to-that-Jewish-princess-from-New York (as his parents put it)—then he never stopped talking even to sleep.