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 Querelle (1953)

  26 I JEAN GENET luxury of a bounty of boobs and milky thighs under clinging black satin, bursting with bosoms, crystals, mirrors, scents, and champagne, the sailor's dreams as soon as he enters the red-light quarter. It had a most impressive door. This consisted of a thick slab of wood, plated over with iron and armed with long, sharp spikes of shining metal-perhaps steel-pointing outward, into the street. In its mysterious arrogance it was perfectly suited to heighten the turmoil of any amorous heart. For the docker or stevedore the door symbolized the cruelty that attends the rites of love. If the door was designed for protection, it had to be guarding a treasure such as only insensate dragons or invisible genies could hope to gain without being impaled to bleed on those spikes-unless, of course, it did open all by itself, to a word, a gesture from you, docker or soldier, for this night the most fortunate and blameless prince who may inherit the for bidden domains by power of magic. To be so heavily protected, the treasure had to be dangerous to the rest of the world, or, again, of such a fragile nature that it needed to be protected by the means employed in the sheltering of virgins. The long shoreman might smile and joke about the sharp spear-tips pointing at him, but this did not prevent his becoming, for a moment, the man who penetrates-by the charm of his words, his face, or his gestures-a palpitating virginity. And from the very threshold, even though he was far from a true hard-on, the presence of his prick would make itself felt in his pants, still soft perhaps, but reminding him, the conqueror of the door, of his prowess by a slight contraction near the tip that spread slowly to the base and on to the muscles of his buttocks. Within that still flabby prick the docker would be aware of the presence of another, minuscule, rigid prick, something like the "idea" of hominess. And it would be a solemn moment, from the contemplation of the spikes to the sound of bolts slamming shut behind him. For Madame Lysiane the door had other virtues. When closed, it transformed her, the lady of the house, into an oceanic pearl contained in the nacre of an oyster that

• From Querelle (1953)

  n 1 QUERELLE smiling, a little less radiantly perhaps, hardly shrinking back from the thrust of the other young man's face. Gil was now leaning against him with his entire vigorous body. "You think that's a scream, hey?" Gil took one of his hands out of his pocket. He put it on Roger's shoulder, so close to the collar that the thumb brushed against the cool skin of the kid's neck. His shoulders against the wall, Roger let himself slide down a little, as if wanting to appear smaller. He was still smiling. "So say something? You think it's funny? Eh?" Gil advanced like a conqueror, almost like a lover. His mouth was both cruel and soft, like those movie seducers' mouths under their thin black mustaches, and his expression turned suddenly so serious that Roger's smile, by a faint drooping of the comers of his mouth, now seemed a little . sad. With his back to the wall, Roger kept on sliding, holding that wistful smile with which he looked to be sinking, submerging in the monstrous wave that Gil was riding, one hand still in pocket, clutching that great spar. "Aaahh ... " Again, Gil voiced that groan, hoarse and remote, that we have had occasion to descnbe. "Oh, yeah, I'd like to have her here, all right. And you bet your ass I'd screw her, and good, if I had her here, the way I've got you I" Roger said nothing. His smile disappeared. His eyes kept on meeting Gil's stare, and the only gentleness he could see there was in Gil's eyebrows, powdered with chalk and cement dust. "Gill" He thought: "This is Gil. It's Gilbert Turko. He's from Poland. He's been working at the Arsenal, on the gantry, with the other masons. He's in a rage." Close to Gil's ear, under his breath which entered the fog, he murmured:

• From Querelle (1953)

  264 I JEAN GENET 0 0 0 Querelle appears so beautiful and so pure-but this appearance is real and sufficient-that I enjoy attributing all manne r of crimes to him. Then again, I wony, not knowing whether I want to degrade and soil him, or if it is my desue to destroy what is evil, render it vain and inefficient, and in so doing compromise the human appearance by the very symbol of purity? The galley convicts' chains were called "the branches." What fruit did they bear! What is it he involves himself in when he goes ashore? Of what sort are his adventures? It pleases as well as upsets me to think that he may provide pleasure to any passer-by, any stray wanderer in the fog. After some strange gestures of hesitation one of these asks him if he might walk along with him for a while. Querelle, not surprised, smiles and accepts his company. As soon as they discover a suitable shelter, some comer of the city wall, Querelle, still smiling, still silent, proceeds to unbutton himself. The man gets down on his knees. When he rises again, he puts a hundred francs into Quere11e's indifferent palm, and then he is gone. Querelle returns on board or goes to the brot hel. Thinking over what I have just written, it strikes me that such a servile function, letting himself be used as a smiling object, does not really fit Quere11e. He is too strong, and to see him thus is to add to his strength, is to tum him into some haughty ma chine capable of crushing me without even noticing. I have said before that I have sometimes wished him to be an impostor; in that sober and boyish sailor's outfit he hides an agile and violent body, and in that body, the soul of a bandit: Querelle is one, I am sure of that. '

• From Querelle (1953)

  211 I QUERELLE Qu erelle hugged her harder and kissed her on the mouth, pushing his tongue into it: but first of all, and retaining an in terior smile, he imbued his back, his shoulders, his buttocks, with the entire significance of the moment-his entire powers of seduction directed themselves to that side of his body, and it became his true face, his sailor face. He tried to make it smile, to excite. Querelle wished for this so fervently that an imper ceptible shudder ran the length of his spine, from neck to tailbone. He dedicated his most precious parts to the officer. He was sure he had been recognized. The Lieutenant's first impulse was to challenge Querelle in order to punish him for making such an indecent exhibition of himself in public. His respect for discipline was closely connected with his taste for pomp and circumstance-and with his conviction that he owed his actual it y to the rigors of an order without which neither his rank nor his authority was able to function-: thus, to betray this order , even just a little, meant self-destruction. Yet he didn't budge. He would not have acted even without the presence of his fellow officers; while he knew the inner need to enforce disci pl ine, to infringe it, or to tolerate an infraction, could make him feel the pleasure of freedom and even complicity with the cu lprit. In fact, it seemed quite elegant and "really rich' ' (those were the words in his mind) to show a smiling indulgence toward such a ravishing couple of young lovers. Querelle let the girl go, but as he did not dare to walk on in the direction of the port, wh ere the officers were heading, he slowly retraced his steps. He felt both happy and discontented. Soon after he had turned around, a young girl detached herself from a group of friends and came running toward him, a big smile on her face. In no time she had reached him. She stretched out her arm to touch the pompon on the sailor's beret-for good luckl-who struck her in the face, hard, with the flat of his hand. Her face turning purple from shame and pain, the young girl stood as if petrified by Querelle's furious stare. Stammering, she said: "I didn't do anything to you."

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “Little baby.” Charles pressed his fingers into Lionel’s mouth. “Suck, little baby.” The tips of Charles’s fingers were chalky. Lionel could feel the whorls of the fingerprints as they slid across his teeth and tongue. Charles watched carefully, and it was the watching that made Lionel hard. The seeing. The witnessing of what he was doing to Lionel. Charles pressed his fingers deeper, and Lionel tasted his knuckles and the spaces between his fingers. Lionel could taste himself and Charles and everything that Charles had touched, a whole world sliding into his mouth, down his throat. Charles worked his fingers past Lionel’s lips, back and forth, in and out, fucking Lionel’s mouth with his fist. Down to the knuckles and back. Lionel’s teeth scraped his knuckles, and then there was the coppery taste of his blood. Lionel shivered beneath him, breathed hard through his nose. “Good. Greedy little baby.” Charles pulled his fingers from Lionel’s mouth, and there was a terrible, gaping emptiness inside him. “No,” Lionel mouthed. “No.” He wanted it back, needed it back. “Shhh,” Charles whispered. Then Lionel felt it, the slick heat of Charles’s fingers inside him. There was an awful heat, and then more pressure. Charles was opening him again, with the wet from his own mouth, wearing thin the membranous boundary that kept the world out. “Yes,” Lionel said. “Yes.” “Good,” Charles said. • • • Lionel had nailed a pillowcase over the broken window. He’d tried to make it as taut as he could, but there was still a little give in the fabric that let in the cold air when the wind blew particularly hard. Charles was leaning over the sink inspecting Lionel’s work. He stuck his finger through a gap between the window and the pillowcase. “Some handyman you’d be,” he said. “I’m a discredit to my dad.” “Oh yeah?” Lionel had taken the carafe from the fridge and was pouring cold water for the two of them. “My dad was always good about that sort of thing. I’m sure I did about ten things wrong.” “You might have gone with plastic. Or called your landlord.” Lionel didn’t want to say that even the idea of calling his landlord and asking him to replace the window made his stomach hurt. Just using the phone to call the department secretary to cancel his proctoring a couple weeks ago had almost put him on his back. It was another of the things that seemed easy for other people, as if they were born knowing how to use the phone without having their throats close up and forgetting all their words. He tried to handle everything with email. Or text. Even face-to-face wasn’t as bad as the phone.

• From Querelle (1953)

  179 I QUERELLE He was listening. He admired her elegance and the fact that she had such distinction, compared to the common run of chippies, but he was not looking at her. Madame Lysiane let the fur-trimmed dress slide off her body, down to her ankles. She was literally shedding it. First, her shoulders appeared, white and divided from her torso by the narrow straps of velvet or satin holding up her slip and her breasts under all that black lace and a pink bra; then Madame Lysiane stepped out of the dress, ready for the joys of the bed. Very upright on her ex tremely high and pointed Louis Quinze heels she advanced toward the bed on wh ich Robert was already reclining. She gazed at him, not a thought in her head. Suddenly she turned round, exclaiming : ''Ah!" and headed for her mahogany dress ing table. She took off the four rings she wore on her fingers, and then, with motions equaiiy well-rounded, but even more sweeping than befo e, she undid her hair. As the shivers running through a lion's body make desert or jung l e vibrate from ground to sky, so her room shook, from the short-pile rug to the last fold of the wi ndow curtains, when Madame Lysiane shook her head, her angry mane, her shoulders white as alabas ter (or mother-of-pearl): proudly she set out, every night, to vanquish the already conquered male. She came back to the bubbling brook under the palm trees where Robert went on smoking, oblivious to everything but the physical aspect of the ceiling. "\Von't you let me in?" Casuaiiy, he flicked aside the comer of the sheet, so that his mi stress could join him on the bed. Such lack of gallantry hurt �1adame Lysiane, yet that hurt was one she delighted in every time, because it showed that there still were realms to conquer. She was a courageous, yet vanquished woman. Her physical splendor, the wealth of her breasts and her hair, the total opulence of her body, as it offered itself to men, was, by its very nature (because all opulence is virginal), easily conquered and enjoyed. It is not beauty we are talking about, in her case.

• From Querelle (1953)

  20 I JEAN GENET "Well, here's her brother, right beside me, in the fogl" It was then that it seemed to him it would be a delight to enter that warmth, that black, fur-fringed, slightly pursed hole that emits such vague, yet ponderous a nd fiery odors, even in corpses already cold. "She gives me the hots, your sister, you know." Roger smiled, from ear to ear. He turned his radiant face toward Gil. "Aaahh ... " The sound was both gentle and hoarse, � eeming to originate in the pit of Girs stomach, nothing so much as an anguished sigh born at the base of his throbbing rod. He realized that there was a rapid, immediate line connecting the base of his prick to the back of his throat and to that muffied groan. We would like these reflections, these observations, which cannot fully round out nor delineate the characters of the book, to give you permission to act not so much as onlookers as creators of these very characters, who will then slowly disengage themselves from your own preoccupations. Little by little, Gil's prick was getting lively. In his pants pocket his hand had· hold of it, flattening it against his belly. Indeed, it had the stature of a tree, a mossy-baled oak with lamenting mandrakes being bo � among its roots. (Sometimes, when he woke up with a hard-on, Gil would address his prick as "my hanged man.'') They walked on, but at a slower pace. "She gives you the hots, eh?" The light of Roger's smile came close to illuminating the fog, making the stars sparkle through. It made him happy to hear, right there beside him, how Gil's amorous desire made his mouth water. "You think that's funny, don'cha.' ' Teeth clenched, hands still in pockets, Gil turned to face the boy and forced him to retreat into a recess in· the stone wall. He kept pushing him with his belly, his chest. Roger kept on

• From Querelle (1953)

  133 I QUERELLE he would respond to the officer's call by swaggering up in an even more outrageous manner, hands in pockets pulling the material of his pants tight over his prick and balls, sticking out his belly. The Lieutenant went almost crazy, not daring to get angry, not daring to complain, nor to burst out into passionate praise of Querelle's attractions. The most striking_ memory Seblon had of him-and it was one he often recalled-was a time in Alexandria, Egypt� o ne blazing noon when the crewman showed up at the foot of the ship's gangway. Qqerelle was smiling, a dazzling, silent smile that showed all his teeth. At that time his face was bronzed, or ' rather, tanned a golden color, as is mostly the case with blonds. In some Ar � b garden he had broken off five or six branches of a mandarin tree, laden with fruit, and, as he liked to keep his hands free, to be able to swing his arms and roll his s h oulders while walking, he had stuck them into the V-neck of his short white jacket, behind the regula_tion black satin cravat, their tips now tickling his chin. For the Lieutenant, that visual detail triggered a sudden and intimate revelation of Querelle. The foliage bursting forth from the jacket was, no doubt, what grew on the sailor's wide chest instead o f any common hair, and perhaps there were-hanging from each intimate and precious little twig-some radiant balls, hard and gentle at the same time ... For a second Querelle remained stock-stili at the top of the gangway, before setting foot on the metallic and burning hot deck, and then he moved on toward his mates. Most of the ship's crew were still ashore. Those aboard were lounging about in the shade of a tarpaulin. One of them yelled: "Wow, look at that! What a lazy sonofabitch! Or is it that he wouldn't dare be seen carrying them." "Well, would you? It would look like I was on my way to my own wedding." Carefully, Querelle pulled out the branches, which were catching on his striped T-shirt and on the black satin cravat. He kept smiling.

• From Querelle (1953)

  87 I QUERELLE in the sunshine of a bl inding smile. His dignity prompted him to dismiss Querelle on the spot, but he could not muster the strength to do that. If bad luck would have Querelle de C ide to go back do\vn to the coal bunkers again, he thought, his lover would certainly follow him there ... The half-naked seaman's presence in his cabin was driving him out of his mind. Already he was heading on down to hell, descending the black marble staircase, almost to those depths into which the news of Vic's murder had plunged him earlier. He wanted to engage Querelle in that sumptuous adventure. He wanted him to play his part in it. \Vhat secret thought, what startling confession, what dazzling display of light was concealed under those bell bottoms, blacker now than any pair ever known to man? \Vhat shadowy penis hung there, its stem rooted in pale moss? And wh at was the substance covering all these things? Well, cer tainly nothing but a little coal dust-familiar enough, in name and consistency; that simple ordinary stuff, so capable of mak ing a fa ce, a pair of hands, appear coarse and dirty-yet it invested this young blond sailorboy with all the mysterious powers of a faun, of a heathen idol, of a volcano, of a Mela nesi an archipelago. He was himself, yet he was so no longer. The Lieutenant, standing in front of Querelle, whom he de sired but did not dare approach, made an almost imperceptible gesture, nervous, quickly withdrawn. Querelle noted all the waves of uneasiness passing across the eyes fixed firmly on his, wit hout letting one of them escape him-and (as if such a weight had, by squashing Querelle, caused his smile to broaden more and more) he kept on smiling under the gaze and the physical mass of the Lieutenant, both bearing down on him so heavily that he had to tense his muscles against them. He understood nonetheless the gravity of that stare, which at that moment expressed total human despair. But at the same time, in his mind, he was shrugging his shoulders and thinking: "Faggot!"

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  I do feel that way, but it’s not because of me, or not just because of it. You know that.” Sigrid leaned over the center console and kissed her, and Marta pushed her away, “No, no, we are talking .” But Sigrid just smiled and kissed her—once, twice, three times—and then she felt Sigrid’s hand sliding past the elastic of her pants and pressing flat against the outside of her underwear. Marta felt hot and suffocated, but Sigrid started to massage her there, and she felt loose and buoyed up on a wave of static. She rode that wave, the friction of Sigrid’s hand and the scrunching heat of her panties. Sigrid’s mouth opening, slick and warm, the gentle pressure of Sigrid sucking on her tongue. And then she realized that her hands were still on the wheel, still at ten and two, just as she’d learned how to drive in high school. “Do you want to come in?” Sigrid asked. “Is it okay?” Marta asked back, looking nervously at the prim, white house. The light in the living room was on. “Come in,” she said. It was early April, and there was still snow on the ground, and the lakes were still frozen. In Sigrid’s room, there was a pink quality to the air. Sigrid had draped a diaphanous scarf over the top of her lamp. Marta lay back on Sigrid’s bed with her clothes still on, and Sigrid climbed over her. Marta was bigger than Sigrid, taller by a couple of inches and broader through the shoulders. Her hands were tough from the plant. But Sigrid smelled like sweat and work. Her forearms were firm, and her back had slender, excellent muscles. It was from the swimming, Marta thought. She knew that Sigrid swam five times a week, that in her younger years she’d been a competitive swimmer. But she’d injured something in herself. That’s when Sigrid had learned of her capacity for reading and remembering things. In those snowy days in her Minnesota town, tucked away in some dank library room, reading book after book, a cast on her arm (or leg? Marta could not remember). Under Sigrid’s body, Marta was aware of how soft her own body had become. She felt formless. Thick. But Sigrid unbuttoned her shirt and helped her out of it. When Sigrid’s fingers first entered her, Marta gasped because she had not expected their tips to be so hard and so kind. She gasped, and Sigrid kissed her forehead and then her neck and then the space below her navel. She kept whispering kind things to Marta. She kept saying that she was beautiful, that she smelled good, that she was so soft, so good. Marta clenched her eyes and knotted her fingers in the bedspread. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Sigrid. She tried to close her legs, but Sigrid opened them, and it was then that Marta felt most naked, most exposed.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Charles knew what she meant by that, how wounded and small and good Lionel seemed. Last night at the potluck, he had glimpsed some vast, open hurt in him. At the moment in the hallway outside the bathroom, Charles had seen how easy it was to hurt his feelings, to sting him. Now Sophie was accusing him of having the same quality, and Charles resented it. “I’d say he’s more like you,” Charles said. “You’re the damaged one.” He playfully dug his finger into her side, and she slapped his forearm hard. The pain of it felt like a kindness. “And what do you think you are?” she asked, wrapping her legs around his waist. They were alone in that corner of the library. It would have been possible, so very possible, for them to slide into one another, and Charles did feel something like thirst burning at the back of his throat. “You calling me fucked up?” Charles leaned over her, and she just shrugged. She was utterly unintimidated by his size. “Hardly a novel insight.” She put her head back and closed her eyes. She slid her thighs against his hips, and Charles got hard. “This morning,” he said, “his window broke. Just dropped out of nowhere, apparently.” Sophie hummed in pleasure. “He was so freaked out. Like, totally melting down. So I cleaned it, swept the glass, you know? And it was the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person more exposed.” Sophie’s eyes were still closed, but she had stopped humming. Charles stood there, her legs still wrapped around him, and he wondered if he should withdraw or continue. She crossed her ankles behind him, and pulled at him slightly, and he almost fell over onto her. He braced himself with his palms flat on the surface on which she was resting. She was warm and close. “What then?” she asked. “I picked him up, kind of like this,” he said, “and I took him back to bed.” “You fuck him?” she asked. “I did.” “And you liked it.” Sophie’s eyes slit open, glossy and bright. She arched her back slightly. Charles dipped his fingers between her legs and she sighed. “I don’t like telling you this.” Sophie touched his wrist gently, then, having located it, wrapped her fingers around him. She drew his hand up to the top of her tights, and then down into the space between her legs. She was damp and warm there, and she breathed out when his fingers entered her. “What else?” she asked. “Tell me what else.” She rocked against his fingers, and Charles thought of the morning, of Lionel’s kind eyes, of the way he’d shivered and clung, of how gentle, how sweet. It seemed a great betrayal to share that with Sophie now, but it was as though she could skim his thoughts, read him. “He asked me to stay, this morning,” Charles whispered.

• From Querelle (1953)

  ss I JEAN GENET Anne of Brittany once resided), then they crossed the Cours Dajot. No one saw th em. They were smoking cigarettes . Querelle was smiling. "You told nobody, right?" "Hell, no. I'm not crazy." The tree-lined walk was deserted. Besides, no one would have thought twice abo u t two sailors coming out of the postern-gate of the rampart road and continuing into the trees, now almost obliterated by the fog, through the brambles, the dead foliage, past ditches and mud, along paths meandering toward some dank thicket. Anyone would have thought they were just two young guys chasing a bit of skirt. "Let's go round the other side. You see? That way· we get around the fort." Querelle went on smiling, smoking. Vic was matching Querelle's long, heavy stride, and as long as he kept pace with him, he was filled with surprising confidence. Querelle's taci turn and powerful presence instilled in Vic a feeling of author ity similar to the one he had experienced the ti m es they had pulled stick-up jobs together. Querelle smiled. He let it rise inside him, that emotion he knew so well, which very soon now, at a good spot, there where the trees stood closer together and where the fog was dense, would take full command of him, driving out all conscience, all inhibition, and would make his body go through the perfect, quick and certain motions of the criminal. He said: "It's my brother who'll take care of the rest. He's our partner." "Didn't know he was in Brest, your bro." Querelle was silent. His eyes became fixed, as if to observe even more attentively the rising of that emotion within him. The smile left his face. His lungs filled with air. He burst. Now he was nothing. "Yeah, he's in Brest a11 right. At La Feria."

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  The paper rustled, lowered. Their eyes met. Simon’s expression narrowed briefly, and Hartjes could see the momentary flutter of his concentration changing focus. Whatever was in Simon’s mind slackened. Hartjes wondered if it was fleeting pity or something else. Simon raised the paper. Hartjes felt relief to have a barrier between them again. “Oh, well, sucks for you, pal.” Hartjes felt a nudge on his thigh from Simon’s foot, and he reached under the table and caught it. He ran his thumb down the instep, dug his fingers there, where a foot was tender and vulnerable, and Simon let out a low groan that turned, suddenly, into a startled cry.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  And I must not struggle either externally or inwardly. I must weep if I must weep, but I must do all she commanded, even if to think of it sent my heart to thudding in my wrists and temples. "Finally everyone was ready. A handful of exquisite little Princesses had served the wine, swinging their pretty little hips and showing me some delightful sights as they bent over to fill the cups. And they too were to see me punished. "All the Court, for the first time, was to see it. "Then with a clap of her hands, the Queen ordered that her pet, Prince Alexi be brought in and that Princess Lynette 'tame' me and 'train' me before their very eyes. "Lord Gregory gave me the usual quick smacks with the paddle. "At once I was in the circle of light, my eyes hurt by it for the moment, and then I saw my trainer's high-heeled boots coming nearer. In a moment of impetuousness, I rushed to her and kissed both her shoes at once. The Court gave a loud murmur of approval. "I continued to shower her with kisses, and I thought, 'My evil Lynette, my strong, cruel Lynette, you are my Queen now.' It was as if my passion were a fluid that coursed through all my limbs, not only my swollen cock. I arched my back and spread my legs every so slightly without even being told to do so. "At once the spanks commenced. But clever little demon that she was, she said, 'Prince Alexi, you will show your Queen that you are a very quick-witted pet, and you shall answer all my commands with your compliance. And you shall answer all my questions, too, with perfect courtesy.' "So I would have to speak. I felt the blood rush to my face. But she gave no time for my terror, and I said with a quick nod of the head, 'Yes, my Princess,' to a murmur of the audience's approval. "She was strong as I have told you. She could spank much harder than the Queen, and as hard as ever the kitchen boys of the stable boys had spanked me. I knew she meant to leave me sore if nothing else, because immediately she gave me several loud cracks, and she had that knack which some of our punishers have of lifting the buttocks with the paddle as she spanked them. "'To that stool, there,' she commanded at once, 'at a squat with your knees wide apart and your hands behind your neck, now!'

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Abe is pumping him harder and faster, rough. It hurts, but it also feels good, and it’s that first time that someone has wanted to touch him, has seemed to need it the way Abe does. His eyes are hungry and wet. “So he’s like, no, I’m gonna finish, and she’s whining and crying, and I’m like, shut that bitch up, I’m losing my hard-on, and her friend is like, no, no please, let us go home, and I’m like, shit, man, it’s not worth it.” Milton pulls away from Abe, but Abe has gripped the back of his neck and kisses him now, hard. He pulls away again, and this time, Abe has had it, pushes him up against the hill, leans in and growls. “What’s your problem, man? You want this or not? They’re gonna be here any minute.” “Want what?” Milton asks, and then, looking down, remembers his cock and how hard it is, and how damp. But there is also the hellish image of those girls in that room, trapped with them, wanting nothing but to go home, to be anywhere but there. “I don’t want anything.” “Then do mine,” he says, pushing his hips forward. “Come on, it’s almost there anyway.” “No,” Milton says. “Come on.” Abe takes Milton’s hand and puts it on his dick, and after a moment, Milton does it, gives in, takes Abe into his hand, and strokes him until he comes quietly, his face nestled in the crook of Milton’s neck. • • • Tate and Nolan slide down the hill and find them sitting on the ground. “Got the shit,” Nolan says. Milton can barely look at him. Nolan sits on a rock next to him, and Milton tries not to breathe because he cannot trust himself not to turn the air into words. Nolan rolls a joint and hands it to Milton. “Your birthday, you start.” Milton lights up first, even though he can still feel the joint from earlier in the day. He takes a long inhale. He hands the joint off to Nolan, holds the smoke inside, lets it build. Then he lets it glide out, slow and easy. “What were you and Edie talking about?” Nolan asks. “She wished me a happy birthday,” he says. “Is that all?” “Yeah—how do you know her?” “I don’t. Not really. I know her sister better,” Nolan says, and there’s a not a crack in his voice or his face, nothing to suggest anything more than a passing acquaintance. Abe chokes on the joint. Nolan shrugs casually. He takes a hit off the joint. The red bead of its lit end is angry with heat, like a sore.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  I answer: “I'll just go on becoming better—or, if things get grim, there's always suicide.” Too grim. I say: “I think it's important to make an attractive death, and that's where the concept of suicide comes in. One's autobiography as novel. My life is so intertwined with my writing that I almost live it as if it were a novel. When do you end a novel? At its most dramatic moment. Your life, if you make it a work of art, should end at exactly the right moment. Like a novel. So I simply conceive of things going on and on until I don't want them to any more. Then they can be stopped.” Still too grim. I laugh again. “Finally, that's the only freedom you have … the freedom to die.” 7:01 P.M. Selma. The Hustling Bar. Selma. R ENDERED GLORIOUS BY the deadly smog, the setting sun burns brilliant red. Palmtrees cut long shadows as Jim walks along Selma. The blond hustler is gone. Many other hustlers are out in the warm evening. “MOVE ON! THIS IS A NO-LOITERING AREA! YOU ARE SUBJECT TO ARREST IN FIVE MINUTES!” The harsh voice coming suddenly from the bullhorn of the cruising cop car jars the early night. The car following slowly, the malehustlers saunter away. But they'll return in a few minutes. Jim will last out the cops. Hell go to the hustling bar a few blocks away, until the street cools. A yellow-lighted bar—two rooms, a pool table in one, a dirty umbrella of smoke encloses it. Later tonight this bar will be jammed with drifting, sometimes dangerous, young-men, slightly older than most on the streets. In the back room a few—it's too early yet—shoot pool, displaying tight bodies in slow motion. A man offers Jim a drink, but he doesn't want that slow commitment, not now, not when the outlaw stirrings are already demanding a night drenched in sex. On his way out, he's stopped by a tough-looking lean youngish man wearing an eye patch. Jim recognizes him as a male pimp who runs a motel; different types of available men mill in the lobby late at night. “I could use a guy like you,” he tells Jim. “Safer this way—and more bread.” Jim takes the man's card, a printed card. Safer. He knows he won't call. On the street the cops are gone for now, and the outlaws are back. 8:05 P.M. Dellwith. He ate at a restaurant; meat, rare, and vegetables and salad and milk. He imagines the nutrients coursing to feed his muscles. Now he drives along the grand old houses of Los Feliz Boulevard, elegant Hollywood; palmtrees are haughtier at the foot of once-fabulous estates hiding in the hills. The sun floats eerily low for orange moments. He drives into Dellwith, a section of Griffith Park. A brook feeds lush trees and burning-bloomed flowers. Into the park. A restroom hides among quiet trees.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  1 Wherefore as does a man who halts not, but goes on his way whatever may appear to him, if the spur of necessity prick him, so we entered by the gap, one in front of the other, mounting the stairway, which by its straitness parts the climbers. And like the little stork that lifts its wing through desire to fly, and, venturing not to abandon the nest, drops it down, 2 even so was I with desire to ask kindled and quenched, going so far as the movement which he makes who is preparing to speak. My sweet Father did not cease, even though the pace was swift, but said: “Discharge the bow of thy speech which thou hast drawn to the iron.” Then securely I opened my mouth, and began: “How can one grow lean there where the need of food is not felt?” “If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager 3 was consumed at the consuming of a firebrand,” said he, “this would not be so difficult to thee; and if thou wouldst think how, to your every movement your image flits about in the mirror, that which seems hard would seem easy to thee. But in order that thou mayst find rest in thy desire, lo here Statius, and him I call and pray, that he now be the healer of thy wounds.” “If,” answered Statius, “I unfold to him in thy presence the eternal things he has seen, let my excuse be that I may not deny thee.” Then he began: “Son, if thy mind heed and receive my words, they shall be a light unto thee on the how which thou utterest. Perfect blood, which never is drunk by the thirsty veins, and is left behind, 4 as ’twere food which thou removest from the table, acquires in the heart a virtue potent to inform all human members, like that blood which flows through the veins to become those. Refined yet again, it descends there whereof to be silent is more seemly than to speak, and thence afterwards distils upon other’s blood, in natural vessel. There the one is mingled with the other; one designed to be passive, the other to be active, by reason of the perfect place whence it springs; and, joined thereto, it begins to operate, first coagulating, and then giving life to that which it had solidified for its own material. The active virtue having become a soul, like that of a plant, 5 in so far different that the former is on the way, and the latter is already at the goal, then effects so much that now it moves and feels, like a sea-fungus; 5 and then sets about developing organs for the powers whereof it is the germ.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Tonight, for the Ngosts, she is making some sort of soup. Lots of shredded chicken breast, a stock from the bones and marrow, a thick cream base, some herbs. French bread from the market. She can see the soup in her mind, the way it goes from clear to creamy white. She can smell the celery and the carrots, the onion and small pieces of beet she’ll julienne and sprinkle in. A bit of cumin, not too much. The meat for texture. She will serve a salad with berries and apricots. Or, she thinks, she could leave the chicken out of the soup and serve them cream-poached fish instead. The soup in small bowls next to the beautiful salmon. She imagines Mac and Jill, their faces warm with hunger and desire. Jill will give her a knowing look. She will reach across the table, squeeze Sylvia’s hands. Her mouth will become a perfect circle. Mac will eat, but while he chews, his eyes will stay on her. She is certain of this, can already feel the long pull of his gaze at her body. But it is Jill who sits at the center of this fantasy. She is its white-hot core. Jill, with her longer fingers and sensible haircut. Jill, the investment banker. Jill, the insatiable. Sylvia presses the glass between her legs to keep it still. It’s cold and slick against her skin. Her stomach aches. There is something moving through her, working its way up her belly and into her chest, coiling and uncoiling. She grips her knees and tries to calm herself. Inside, Sylvia can hear the soft rumble of footsteps. The girl. Up the stairs Sylvia goes, passing the pictures of the family, how they seem to regress as she goes. The two children vanish, and the parents recede back through their years, gaining hair, gaining smiles, gaining happiness. A family blooms, uncles and aunts, sisters and brothers, grandparents. It’s like tracing a muddy stream to its clear, frothy headwaters. At the top of the stairs, she pauses. The sound of footsteps farther ahead. Yes, the girl. Except she is in her parents’ room. Sylvia rolls her eyes. She is still a little jagged, a little rough. She tries to conceal her wolf’s teeth, the part of her that wants to reach out and snatch the girl and tear her to pieces.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  As many fireflies as the peasant who is resting on the hill—at the time that he who lights the world least hides his face from us, 2 when the fly yields to the gnat—sees down along the valley, there perchance where he gathers grapes and tills: with flames thus numerous the eighth chasm was all gleaming, as I perceived, so soon as I came to where the bottom showed itself. And as he, 3 who was avenged by the bears, saw Elijah’s chariot at its departure, when the horses rose erect to heaven,— for he could not so follow it with his eyes as to see other than the flame alone, like a little cloud, ascending up: thus moved each of those flames along the gullet of the fosse, for none of them shows the theft, and every flame steals a sinner. I stood upon the bridge, having risen so to look, that if I had not caught a rock, I should have fallen down without being pushed. And the Guide, who saw me thus attent, said: “Within those fires are the spirits; each swathes himself with that which burns him.” “Master,” I replied, “from hearing thee I feel more certain; but had already discerned it to be so, and already wished to say to thee: who is in that fire, which comes so parted at the top, as if it rose from the pyre where Eteocles with his brother was placed?” 4 He answered me: “Within it there Ulysses is tortured, and Diomed; 5 and thus they run together in punishment, as erst in wrath; and in their flame they groan for the ambush of the horse, that made the door by which the noble seed of the Romans came forth; within it they lament the artifice, whereby Deidamia in death still sorrows for Achilles; and there for the Palladium they suffer punishment.” “If they within those sparks can speak,” said I, “Master! I pray thee much, and repray that my prayer may equal a thousand, deny me not to wait until the horned flame comes hither; thou seest how with desire I bend me towards it.” And he to me: “Thy request is worthy of much praise, and therefore I accept it; but do thou refrain thy tongue. Let me speak: for I have conceived what thou wishest; and they, perhaps, because they were Greeks, might disdain thy words.” 6 After the flame had come where time and place seemed fitting to my Guide, I heard him speak in this manner: “O ye, two in one fire! if I merited of you whilst I lived, if I merited of you much or little, when on earth I wrote the High Verses, move ye not; but let the one of you tell where he, having lost himself, went to die.” The greater horn of the ancient flame began to shake itself, murmuring, just like a flame that struggles with the wind.

• From Querelle (1953)

  108 I JEAN GENET 41Her pussy! Her little pussy! Her cunt!" ·He thought of it, imbuing the words with a tenderness that turned them into a desperate incantation. "Her damp little pussy! Her little thighs." He continued the line of thought: 44Mustn't call them her 'little thighs,' she's got beautiful thighs, Paulette has. She's got nice fat thighs, and up there between them there's that little furry pussy." He had a hard-on. In the midst of his sadness-or shame-and obliterating it, he now recognized the existence of a new, yet already proven certainty. He was discovering himself again. All his being was now running down into his prick, to make it hard. It was just a part of him, but it had this providen tial vigor that was capable of keeping his shame at bay. By siphoning off the shame which was oozing from his body, into the prick, replenishing its spongy tissues, Gil felt himself grow ing harder, stronger, prouder again. There could be no doubt that it was a moment to call to his aid all the fluids which bathed his internal organs. Instinctively he looked for the darkest and most out-of-the-way spot on the esplanade. Paul ette's smile was alternating with that of her brother. In a state of extreme animation Gil's mind's eye wandered down the thighs, raised the skirt, there were her garters. Above those (his thoughts slowed down a little) there wa_s white skin, suddenly darkened by the presence of a fleece which he just couldn't get a stationary, a fixed image of, under the spotlight of his desire. And in one go, after running up under her dress and lingerie, his prick came out again at just about the level of Paulette's breasts: he would be able to see better with the tip of his prick. Facing the sea Gil leaned against the balustrade. Out in the Roads the lights of the Dunkerque glimmered. Gil kept on climbing, from the breasts to the chubby white neck, to the chin, to the smile (Roger's smile, then Paulette's). Gil under st ood, albeit dimly, that the feminine quality which veiled the gir l's smile had its source between the thighs. That smile was of the same nature as-he didn't know what, exactly-but that it