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)

  to I JEAN GENET pulous attention of an entomologist studying the habits of insects. But as soon as He moves, what dazzling revenge his en tire body takes, in the glory of its motionl He (Querelle)is never absent-minded, always attentive to what he is doing. Every moment of his life he rejects the dream. He is forever present. He never answers: "I was thinking of some thing else." And yet the childishness of his obvious preoccupa tions astonishes me. Hands in pockets, �ly, I would say to him, "Give me a little shove, just to knock the ash oil my cigarette , " and he would let By and punch me on the shoulder. I shrug it oil. I should have been able to keep my sea legs or hang on to the gunwale, the ship wasn't rolling that hard, but quickly, and with pleasure, I took advantage of the ship's motion to sway and to allow myseH to be shifted along, always in his direction. I even managed to brush against his elbow. · It is as if a fierce and devoted watchdog, ready to chew up your carotid artery, were following him around, trotting, at times, be tween the calves of his legs, so that the beast's Banks seem to blend with his thigh muscl�, ready to bite, always growling and snarling, so ferocious one expects to see it bite oil his balls. After these few excerpts picked (but not entirely at random) from a private j6umal which suggested his, character to us, we would like you to look upon the sailor Querelle, born from that solitude in which the officer himself remained isolated, as a singular figure comparable to the Angel of the Apocalypse,

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  I twisted, struggled. It was no use. Very soon, I so craved the Queen's hands that I was moaning aloud and in one of these great tormented states, I did all that I could by gesture and manner to show that I would obey her. "Of course I had no intention of doing so. I did so only long enough to be rewarded. And I wonder if you can imagine how difficult this was for me. I was put free on my hands and knees, and told to kiss her feet. It was as if I had only just been stripped naked. Never had I obeyed any command; nor been made to obey while free of shackles. And yet so tortured was I for relief, my sex so swollen with desire, that I forced myself to kneel at her feet and kiss her slippers. I shall never forget the magic of her hands when she touched me. I could feel the shock of passion through me, and as soon as she stroked and toyed with my sex, my passion was at once released, which greatly angered her. "'You have no control,'" she said crossly to me, 'and for this you will be punished. But you have tried to submit and that is something.' But at that moment, I rose up and tried to run from her. I'd never had any intention of submitting to anything. "Of course the Pages apprehended me at once. You must never think yourself safe from them. You may be in a vast, dimly lit chamber alone with a Lord. You may think yourself quite free when he falls asleep with his wine cup. But should you try to rise and escape, at once the Pages appear to subdue you. Only now that I am the Queen's trusted valet am I allowed to sleep alone in her chamber. The Pages dare not enter the darkened room where the Queen sleeps. So they have no way of knowing that I am here with you. But this is rare, most rare. And even now we might be discovered..." "But what happened to you," Beauty pressed. "They apprehended you," she said fearfully. "The Queen gave little consideration to how I should be punished. She sent for Lord Gregory and told him I was most incorrigible. That in spite of my fine hands and skin, and royal birth, I should be taken at once to the kitchen, there to serve for as long as she should decree...and indeed, she hoped she would remember I was there and send for me. "I was carried down to the kitchen, protesting as usual.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  They were paddled steadily while at the same time their penises were also being given pleasure. Here a Page stroked the engorged penis as he worked the paddle. Here two Pages attended the same Prince mercilessly. Beauty could understand what was happening even when Lord Gregory did not explain it to her. She saw the confusion and misery of the young Princes, their faces caught between struggle and surrender. The Prince nearest her was on all fours, his penis tormented slowly. As soon as the paddling commenced, he went soft. So the paddling ceased, and the hands attended to him again, hardening him. Along the walls were other Princes, spread-eagled, their ankles and wrists bound to the bricks, their organs being taught obedience with touching and kisses and suckling. "O, it is worse for them, much worse," Beauty thought, but her eyes and here mind were too filled with their exquisite endowments. She looked at the rounded buttocks of those made to kneel; she loved their polished chests, the lean muscularity of their limbs, and above all, perhaps, the nobility of suffering in their handsome faces. She thought of Prince Alexi again and she wanted to shower him with kisses. She wanted to kiss his eyelids and the nipples of his chest; she wanted to suckle his organ. Now she saw a young Prince brought over on his hands and knees to suck the penis of another. And as he performed the act with great enthusiasm, he in turn was paddled by the Page who seemed, as all others, to take delight in inflicting torment. The Prince's eyes were closed, he drew on the powerful sex of the other with long caresses of his lips, his own buttocks flinching with each blow, and as the poor Prince whom he suckled seemed on the edge of culminating passion, the suckler was pulled back by the Page who took his obedient slave to yet another erect penis. "Here, as you can see, the young slave Princes are taught their manners," Lord Gregory said, "to be ever in readiness for their masters and mistresses. A hard lesson to learn and one which you are, in general, spared. It is not that readiness isn't required of you; it is that you are spared having to make such a display of it." He led her on closer to the female slaves who were being worked in a different manner.

• From Querelle (1953)

  But while he was turning the doorknob he realized he was hoping that the watch (which he had returned, as soon as he got back on board, to its place in the drawer-while the Lieutenant wasn't looking) had stopped, of its own accord-broken or run down or-he dared to think it-stopped by virtue of a particular kindness of destiny, or even out of a particular kindness on the part of that already once-seduced wa�ch itself. 85 I QUERELLE "Well, so what. If he says just one word about that, I'll take care of him, but good." The Lieutenant was waiting for him. From the first moment, the caress of the Lieutenant's quick glance at his body and his face, Querelle was confirmed in his power : it was his body that was emitting the ray that ran through the officer's eyes down to the very pit of his stomach. The handsome blond boy, secretly adored, would very soon appear, naked perhaps, but re-invested with great majesty. The coal dust was not thick enough to quite conceal the brightness of the hair, the eyebrows and the skin, nor the rosy coloration of the lips and ears. It was obviously just a veil, and Querelle raised it now and again by occasionally, coquettishly, one might say artfully blowing on his arms or ruffling a curl of his hair. "You're a good worker, Querelle. You even go for the rough chores, without even telling me. 'Who told you to coal?" The Lieutenant sounded tough and sardonic. He was struggling to suppress his feelings. His eyes were making pitiful and useless efforts not to rest too obviously on Querelle's hips and pelvis. One day when he had offered him a glass of port wine, and Querelle had replied that he couldn't take alcohol on account of a dose of the clap (Querelle had lied : on the spur of the moment, and to whet the Lieutenant's desire, he had pretended to be suffering from a "man's disease," to appear a true "bedroom athlete") , Seblon, ignorant of the nature of this affliction, imagined a festering penis under that blue denim, dripping away like one of those Easter candles inlaid with five grains of incense . . . He was already quite furious with himself for being unable to take his eyes off those muscular and po�vdered arms, where particles of coal dust clung to hairs still curled and golden. He thought : "What if it really was Querelle who murdered Vic? But that's impossible. Querelle is too much of a natural beauty to need to assume the beauty of crime. He doesn't need that kind 86 I JEAN GENET of trimming. One would have to make up ail kinds of things about them, secret messages, meetings, embraces, stolen kisses." Querelle gave him the same answer he had given to the Captain at Arms : "Well . . . "

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  And though she laid the placket of buttonholes in place with her hands, she drew each button through with her mouth so that he was very pleased and commended her. She grew tired; her breasts ached from the heavy brass bells, and she felt the weight of the others between her legs, and that maddening stroking of her thighs and the jingling sound which never quite died away. But when she was finished, and he had just pulled on his new boots to help her, he gathered her in his arms and kissed her. "As time passes, you will learn to work faster. It will be nothing for you to dress or undress me, to perform any small task I ask of you. I shall have you sleep in my chambers, and attend to everything." "My Prince," she whispered, and she pressed her breasts against him, aching for him. She kissed his boots quickly, and all she had seen during the day came back to haunt and tantalize her: Princess Lizetta's cruel punishment, the Princes being trained, and then the one she had not seen, but never forgotten, Prince Alexi -- all of this came together in her mind, stoking her passion and at the same time frightening her. O, if she could only sleep in the Prince's quarters now. Yet when she thought of all those male slaves she had seen in the Hall... But the Prince, as if he sensed her mind was not as attentive to him as it should have been, began kissing her roughly. Then he ordered her to go down on her hands and knees with her forehead pressed to the floor so that he might see her buttocks turned to him. She obeyed, the cruel little bells reminding her of all the naked parts of her. "My Prince," she whispered to herself. She felt some change in her heart which she did not fully understand. Yet she was afraid as always. He ordered her to rise, and again he gathered her into his arms, and this time he said: "Kiss me as you desire to kiss me." And overjoyed she kissed the cold smoothness of his forehead, kissed the dark locks of his hair, his eyelids and his long eyelashes. She kissed his cheeks, and then his open mouth. And his tongue passed into her mouth and she weakened all over so that he had to support her. "My Prince, my Prince," she murmured knowing that she disobeyed. "I am so afraid of all of it." "But why, beautiful one? Isn't it clear to you now? Isn't it simple?" "O, but how long will I serve? Will this be all of my life now?" "Listen to me."

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Myrmex, was greatly set afire, and ready to do or suffer aught to gain her; and so he endeavoured by all kind of means to enterprise the matter, and to break through the serene guard of her house, and remembered the fragility of man, that might be enticed and corrupted with money, since by gold even adamant gates may be opened. On a day when he found Myrmex alone, he discovered his love, desiring him to shew his favour to heal him thereof (otherwise he intended and should certainly die unless he soon obtained his desire) with assurance that he need not fear, as he might privily be let in alone and under the covering of the night, without knowledge of any person, and in a moment come out again. To these, and other gentle words, he added a wedge which might violently split the hard tenacity of Myrmex ; for he shewed him glittering new gold pieces in his hand, saying that he would give his mistress twenty crowns, and him ten. « Now Myrmex, hearing these words, was greatly troubled, abhorring in his mind to commit so wicked a mischief; wherefore he stopped his ears, and turning his head departed away. Howbeit, although far apart and having now speedily gotten him home, the glittering hue of these crowns could never out of his mind, but he seemed to see the money, which was so worthy a prey, before his eyes. Wherefore, poor Myrmex was tossed on the waves of opinions and was utterly distracted and could not tell what to do; for on the one side, he considered the promise which he made to his master, and the punishment which should ensue if he did contrary, while on the other side, he thought of the gain and passing pleasure of the erowns of gold. In the end the desire of the money did more prevail than the fear of death, for : 429 20 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  They walk away, not glancing back. Jim returns to the concrete alcove. A youngman is already there, pressed against the shadows. Jim stands on the ledge, the other takes his cock in his mouth. Another man suddenly there squats sucking the youngman blowing Jim. Jim breaks away, the youngman follows him down the slope to the deserted concrete wall. The youngman offers his ass to Jim's erect cock. But Jim doesn't want to fuck, not now, doesn't want to chance ending the hunt in this area, even for a short while. He merely rubs his cock against the other's smooth buttocks while the other jerks off. Jim drives to another side of the circular park, gets out, stands by the road. A car stops. The driver gets out. He tries to kiss Jim, to rub his body against his—but he is not attractive enough for that. Jim guides his head down, down. The man accepts his cock. Lights flash around the curving road. The cops? Another hunter? The outlaw excitement demanding rashness, Jim holds the man's head at his groin. The man continues sucking hungrily as the carlights near. The car stops in the middle of the road, the driver watches. Jim turns away, as if to enter his car. The others drive off. Again he stands by the road. Another car. The driver is young, goodlooking. Yes. Jim crosses the road, ascends a short incline toward the playground there, deserted now. The youngman follows him. A slide. A merry-go-round on the sand. A tangled jungle gym. Skeletons of children's games, somber in the night. Both men sit on the merry-go-round. They kiss. The merry-go-round moves slightly. Their hands explore, holding cocks, balls. The youngman leans over Jim's cock, sucking it. Jim's finger moves past the lightly furred balls, touching, then entering the knotted asshole. The other's tongue swirls about Jim's cock. The merry-go-round begins to turn slowly. 11:48 P.M. Montana Street Hanson Avenue. Hunters are scattering from the park in their cars. The soundless signal to shift the arena has been given. Now the placid residential district below the hilltop park will become, totally unaware of its transformation, the center of this floating underground. Until a year ago, there was an old unoccupied house on one of the corners, its yard cluttered with branchy trees and bushes. Late at night hunters congregated there in fleeting orgies. There were recurrent rousts by the cops; outlaws were lined outside, handcuffed. Now cars are swirling around the block, stopping, moving on, U-turning. The more daring men get out, stand, walk along the sidewalks. Jim waits outside his car in the parking lot next to a sleepy apartment house. Several cars drive around, drivers look at him for a signal. A car stops. A man calls out: “You hustling?” “Yeah.” He wasn't, and this isn't hustling territory—but the man's words aroused the mysterious excitement to sell his body.

• From Querelle (1953)

  u I JEAN GENET ((Gill" "Oh . . . l Oh . . . ! I sure could use a piece of her, right now. You, you look alike, you know. You've got that same little mouth of hers." He moved his hand closer to Roger's neck. Finding himself so the master, in the heart of the light mass of watery air, increased Gil Turko's desire to be tough, sharp and heavy. To rip the fog, to destroy it with a sudden brutal g e sture, would perhaps be enough to affirm his virility, which otherwise, on his return to quarters tonight, would suffer mean and powerful humiliation. ''Got her eyes, too. What a shame you ain't her. Hey, what's this? You passing out?" As if to prevent Roger from "passing out," he pressed his belly closer still to his, pushing him against the wall, while his free hand kept hold of the channing head, holding it above the waves of a powerful and arrogant sea, the sea that was Gil. They remained motionless, one shoring up the other. "What are you going to tell her?" "I'll try to get her to come along tomorrow." Despite his inexperience, Roger understood the extent, if not quite the meaning of his confusion, when he heard the sound of his own voice: it was toneless. "And the other thing I told you about?" "I'll try my best about that too. We going back now?" They pulled apart, quickly. Suddenly they heard the sea. From the very beginning of this scene they had been close to the water's edge. For a moment both of them felt frightened at the thought of having been s o close to danger. Gil took out a cigarette and lit it. Roger saw the beauty of his face that looked as if it had been picked, like a flower, by those large hands, thick arid covered with powdery dust, their palms illuminated now by a delicate and trembling flame. 0 0 0

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Demanding contact, Jim opens his own fly, begins to work up his cock—but it won't respond. The youngman reaches out tentatively. “ Touch me! ” Jim's urgent whisper ricochets in the darkness. The youngman slides down, he takes Jim's cock in his mouth. Other shadows gather. One edges the tall youngman away and bends over Jim's cock. Jim pulls it out, moves it to another waiting mouth. The empty spell is broken. He feels resurrected. VOICE OVER: The Gay Parade VOICE OVER: The Gay Parade I T WAS I NDEPENDENCE DAY . Not only that, it was the 200th Fourth of July. In Los Angeles there would be as many parades, it seemed, as there are palmtrees hovering over this God-loved city. There would be the big parade down ritzy Wilshire Boulevard, but it would have to detour at Beverly Hills, which, snobbish even on the day of Democracy's birthday, had decreed its streets would not be clogged by rabble—and there would be local parades and celebrations, WASP ones in Pasadena, black ones in Watts, Chicano ones in East L.A. And the gay parade. The gay parade. How curiously radical that still sounded. Even ten years ago, a cop might bust you for holding same-gender hands in public. It all still seemed too far out for many—hadn't the dinosauric Los Angeles Herald-Examiner lamented editorially the week before that so horrendous a time had arrived as would permit—on independence day!—a parade of perverts? Of course the parade would be down Hollywood Boulevard. Where else but on the turf they've tried deviously with ordinances, openly with violence, to wrest from us year after year? Hollywood Boulevard. Site of how many gay battles fought cruising and hustling, being chased away by the envious cops, and returning to cruise and hustle, on the same corner, your favorite? Our street, conquered with how many busts for loitering and soliciting and trespassing? how many charges of lewd conduct? how many citations for, even, jaywalking? Bought with how many cop interrogations and trips to jail to be hassled, questioned, booked, held, charged? Oh, yes, bought, and paid for, yes, in symbolic lavender bloodbaths, this beautiful ugly street, with its butch army-surplus store for workers' boots and muscle shirts; dandy shops for glitter concerts and times when you want to show your supertrim build; the store displaying the ubiquitous statue of David, in two groin sizes; this street with its cartoon-vamp-style shop featuring superb sequined clothes just right for a drag ball; this Boulevard with its outdoor food stands ingeniously right for loitering, cruising, soliciting, hustling, jaywalking-to, and lewd conduct.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  The driver is handsome, blond. He leans over and opens the door for Jim. Inside, the man goes down on Jim. Jim reaches for the other's cock, but the other eases his hand away; it's obvious that he does not want Jim to respond in any way. Jim leans back. Outside, another hunter circles the car slowly. A few feet away a man stands next to a van, another man squats before him. In the car, Jim raises his body, the other's tongue rims him. The man outside watches through the window. The exhibitionistic splendor is exciting Jim, he's close to coming, and he doesn't want to, not yet. He eases his body away. “Sorry, man, I can't come,” he lies. The man watching through the window replaces him in the car. Jim stands within the dark doorway of a building for rent. A man in leather chaps stands before him. Soon each has pulled out his cock. Two warriors, sex weapons pointed at each other. Neither advances. Jim breaks the tie by moving away. Increasingly more outlaws linger in the lot's shadows. A goodlooking man begins to cruise him. A third appears across the street. The first man crosses. Jim turns away quickly, not wanting to see them if they move toward each other, away from him; the wing of depression touches him again, a constant intrusive presence within his victories. Guarded by a cluster of trees, a long partition between two darkened impassive buildings at the end of the parking lot provides a cramped place for encounters. A muscular man stands there. He and Jim glance at each other then instantly away. Both too similar, both instantly attracted to each other, that very attraction and similarity causes each to turn away, to show the other that, for him, the other doesn't exist. But both glance back at the same time, and again away. Certain the other has left, Jim returns to that strategic place. Soon, two men flank him. A frozen triangle. Jim is tempted to cross the street, apprehensive they may glide toward each other; but one of the two moves closer to him, and the other moves away. Dodging the low-hanging twigs and branches, Jim moves into the space between the two buildings. Following quickly, the other man licks Jim's nipples. Jim touches the other's hairy chest. The man blows Jim, then stands, Jim sucks him, then stands. They alternate. They separate. Back to the lot. More outlaws leaving the bars. At the back of a squat building is a three-walled indention, like an open cell. An overhead light is periodically smashed by the hunters; the jagged bulb looks out blindly as three men buttoning their pants emerge out of the enclosure. Jim moves into the cubicle. Waits.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  The squatting man reaches for it too, alternately sucking Jim's, alternately the other's, now taking both cocks in his straining mouth. The two standing lean toward each other over the man blowing them. Yes, the other is very attractive, and Jim allows their lips to come together. They ignore a fourth hunter, who merely stands closely watching in hypnotized fascination as Jim's cock and the other's push into the mouth of the kneeling man. Jim is aware of cum spurting. His? The other's? Both? He pulls his cock out. The other came, not he. Footsteps. He uses that as an excuse to move on. Outside, he walks past the dark corridor between two buildings on a side street. No one is there now. Then he hears it, a tapping, insistent, on glass. He looks around. Nothing. The tapping—a definite signal—increases. He glances across the street. In a second-story apartment, blinds and drapes open, an old, old man, ugly, shriveled body naked and skeletal, is signaling on his window. Jim turns away. He drives to Western. He looks toward the entrance to another tunnel, this one connecting the street to the bus stop on the freeway. No one there now either. He parks on Western. Here, one liberating night, just slightly after 11:00, he leaned against a fully lighted shop window—bicycles for sale all shiny chrome and slick spokes inside—while a man, who had just separated from a girl at the corner, blew him for oblivious seconds. The heavy Western Avenue traffic passed by noisily, blind. 1:15 A.M. The Street and Alley Outside the Hawk Bar. He stands on the street across from a leather-oriented bar that attracts butch men. Soon it will be closing time, and the patrons will move into the lot, the street, the alley. Already, some are staking out their places. Shirtless too, a man lingering in the alley sees Jim immediately; he moves even slower in the beginning choreography of the hunt. Slowly too—slower—Jim floats under a dark stairway leading to the upper story of an apartment house. The shirtless man glides after him. Under the stairs, the man is about to touch Jim's chest when a third man, unattractive, uncomfortable, hungry, interrupts the connection, perhaps deliberately to separate the two attractive, attracted men. Doggedly, he won't move. Impatient, Jim leaves, expecting the first man to follow him. But misinterpreting Jim's exit, the man drives away. The unattractive man remains abandoned under the stairs. In the alley, in a recessed entrance to a building, the door boarded, two men are moaning softly. Jim is about to move away when the one being fucked reaches out toward his cock. Jim enters the enclosure. Now the man being fucked blows Jim. Along the alley, a white, luminous crystal web of carlights entraps them threateningly. The three bodies press against the boarded door, the connections unsevered. Not the cops. Jim crosses the street.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Covetousness denotes immoderation with regard to riches in two ways. First, immediately in respect of the acquisition and keeping of riches. In this way a man obtains money beyond his due, by stealing or retaining another’s property. This is opposed to justice, and in this sense covetousness is mentioned (Ezech. 22:27): “Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood . . . and to run after gains through covetousness.” Secondly, it denotes immoderation in the interior affections for riches; for instance, when a man loves or desires riches too much, or takes too much pleasure in them, even if he be unwilling to steal. In this way covetousness is opposed to liberality, which moderates these affections, as stated above ([3249]Q[117], A[2], ad 3, A[3], ad 3, A[6]). In this sense covetousness is spoken of (2 Cor. 9:5): “That they would . . . prepare this blessing before promised, to be ready, so as a blessing, not as covetousness,” where a gloss observes: “Lest they should regret what they had given, and give but little.” Reply to Objection 1: Chrysostom and the Philosopher are speaking of covetousness in the first sense: covetousness in the second sense is called illiberality [*{aneleutheria}] by the Philosopher. Reply to Objection 2: It belongs properly to justice to appoint the measure in the acquisition and keeping of riches from the point of view of legal due, so that a man should neither take nor retain another’s property. But liberality appoints the measure of reason, principally in the interior affections, and consequently in the exterior taking and keeping of money, and in the spending of the same, in so far as these proceed from the interior affection, looking at the matter from the point of view not of the legal but of the moral debt, which latter depends on the rule of reason. Reply to Objection 3: Covetousness as opposed to justice has no opposite vice: since it consists in having more than one ought according to justice, the contrary of which is to have less than one ought, and this is not a sin but a punishment. But covetousness as opposed to liberality has the vice of prodigality opposed to it. Whether covetousness is always a mortal sin?Objection 1: It seems that covetousness is always a mortal sin. For no one is worthy of death save for a mortal sin. But men are worthy of death on account of covetousness. For the Apostle after saying (Rom. 1:29): “Being filled with all iniquity . . . fornication, covetousness [Douay: ‘avarice’],” etc. adds (Rom. 1:32): “They who do such things are worthy of death.” Therefore covetousness is a mortal sin.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  As he drove out of the park, the vague rejection faded even more. He keeps telling himself that, yes, of course, the two men in the arena wanted him in a three-way , and that's why—… Still, there are blisters to soothe. He goes to a magazine store off Hollywood Boulevard. In the back is a darkened movie arcade. Now wearing Levi's and boots, but still shirtless, Jim moves idly past magazines exhibiting naked bright-colored sexflesh, giant organs and orifices, like mangled fish in distorting closeup. Instantly, he feels a man's eyes on him. Jim pauses at a rack as if to leaf through a magazine. Squatting, the man reaches for one on a lower rack. For moments his mouth pauses before Jim's groin. Jim walks to the back of the twilit arcade. Cubicles like confessionals house porno movies; for one or two quarters each few minutes, a grainy reel flashes writhing images on a tiny individual screen inches from the viewer. Some cubicles are vacant. Others contain two or three people bunched together—no film running. Along the walls three or four men just stand. Others wander among the booths and aisles. Jim enters a vacant booth. Waits. The man who followed him blows him. Another man watches. Jim pulls his own cock away from the squatting man, holding it out for the other to suck too. But the other wants only to watch. Moans rise over the rough metallic whirring of old, old projectors. A goodlooking man squeezes into the same booth. The squatting man alternates between sucking Jim and the other. Over the head bobbing on their cocks, the two standing stare at each other untouching. MIXED MEDIA 2 MIXED MEDIA 2 “Four San Francisco teenagers recently got the surprise of their young lives. Tooling around in their souped-up car looking for a little fun, they spotted two homosexuals leaving … a well-known gay bar. The youths roared to a stop, jumped out of their car and began to push the homosexuals around.

• From Querelle (1953)

  16 I JEAN GENET counterparts of a greasy, broken-toothed comb at the bottom of a pocket; full-dress gaiters, from a distance impeccable as sails, but, like those, far from true white; a pair of elegant but poorly tailored pants; badly drawn tattoos; a filthy handkerchief; socks with holes in them. 'What for us is the strongest memory of Querelle's expression can best be described by an image th at comes to mind: delicate metal strands, sparsely barbed, easily overcome, grasped by a prisoner's heavy hand, or grazing against sturdy fabric. Almost in spite of himself, quietly, to one of his mates, already stretched out in his hammock, Querelle said: "Pair of fuckin' faggots, those two." "'Which two?" "What?" Querelle raised his head. His buddy, it seemed, didn't get it. And that was the end of the conversation. Querelle pulled off his other sock and turned in. Not that he wanted to sleep, or think over the scene in the bistro. Once he was stretched out, he had at last the leisure to consider his own affairs, and he had to think quick, in spite of his fatigue. The owner of La Feria would take the two kilos of opium, if Querelle only could get th em out of the despatch-boat. The customs officials opened all sailors' bags, even the smallest ones. Coming ashore, all but the officers were subjected to a thorough search . Without cracking a smile, Querelle thought of the Lieutenant. The enormity of this idea struck him even while he was thinking what only he himself could have translated into: "He's been giving me the old eye for some time now. Nervous like a cat on a hot tin roof. I got him hooked, I guess." Querelle was glad to know that Ropert was now living a life of Oriental ease and luxury; to know that he was a brothel Madam's lover as well as a friend to her obliging husband. He closed his eyes. He regained that region in himself where his brother was there with him.- He let himself sink into a state where neither could be distinguished from the other. From this

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  There are two main accesses to its summit, a gradually ascending dirt road, which requires ten minutes' climbing, and a rougher one over rocks and under snagging branches, which takes two minutes. Jim chooses the faster. Perspiration beads his oiled muscles. 12:34 P.M. Griffith Park. The Hill. On the hill are several choice spots for sunbathing, the best ones for good sexual contact being feet away from branchy hollows of trees. The first spot. An unattractive loose-fleshed old man lies there naked, his hand on his spent groin. Abandoned and desperate and alone—one of many lingering, ubiquitous, wasted, judging ghosts in the gay world. Jim avoids him. Another spot. Another naked man—attractive; he looks up at Jim and invites. An older man, fully, hotly dressed, as if to conceal his body among so much nakedness, stares at them over the bushes. Jim darts into a yawning cove of branches. The naked youngman wraps a towel about his waist and follows. In the leafy cave, he pulls Jim's trunks down, then the bikini; Jim removes the other's towel. Cock rubs cock. The other blows Jim, then straightens up. Jim is about to go down on him when he sees the fully dressed man entering the cove. Jim and the other stop their movement, adjust towel and trunks. Long, long moments, and the man won't leave. Annoyed, Jim breaks away. At the pinnacle of this hill, two men lie in trunks, side by side, holding hands. Jim walks to the opposite side of the hill. In another place, barely enclosed by low bushes, a boyish youngman spreads his legs, his own fingers exploring his ass invitingly. Jim moves on until he finds an unoccupied spot. He drinks from the thermos of protein, spreads his beach mat, removes his trunks and bikini, and lies under the sun, the bikini bunched loosely at his groin. The man who earlier intruded on him and the other has followed him here. Jim ignores him. The man moves desolately away. Eyes closed, Jim hears rustling branches, quickening sighs. Footsteps emerge from the nearby brushy area. The sun kisses Jim's body; he dozes for moments. The sound of footsteps rouses him. He doesn't open his eyes. The footsteps approach, closer. Closer. His eyes remain deliberately shut. The footsteps have reached his side. Now a hand pushes away the bunched bikini from his groin, a mouth envelops his cock. Still, Jim doesn't open his eyes. The sun, his sweat, the mouth sucking.… Now he eases the mouth away. Footsteps depart. Jim's eyes remain closed. Moments later he stands, stretches naked—aware electrically of a presence in the immediate area. In the bushes to his left, a light-haired man is standing under the sun-mottled leaves; he looks very handsome, young—and vaguely familiar. The youngman motions to Jim.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  The tall youngman slides on the sand between Jim's arched legs and licks his balls. With one hand Jim grasps the slender waist of the naked youngman, with the other he holds the other's round cock about to burst. Clustered throughout under the crumbling boards in the water-decayed cavern, other outlaw torsos shine darkly in the mottled light. The sound of sucking, of sliding flesh. Sighs. Sounds of orgasm float through the darkness. Two more outlines have materialized about Jim—he feels more mouths. His mind explodes with outlaw images: men and men and men, forbidden contacts, free, time crushed, intimate forbidden strangers. Sensations increase, a tongue slides over his balls, another on his ass, his cock still only simulating entry into the anxious asshole. And now his lips are on those of a beautiful youngman suddenly beside him, and in one swift thrust Jim's cock enters the grinding ass, and his hand holds the squirting cock of the naked youngman he's fucking. Male and male and male, hard limbs, hard cocks, hard muscles, hard stomachs, strong bodies, male and male. Jim is close to coming. His hand is sticky with the cum of the naked youngman he's still fucking, and he rubs the moist cum on the face of the tall man licking his balls, and Jim and the beautiful youngman continue to kiss. Not yet! Jim breaks away from the bodies. Again in the shaft of light, he adjusts his trunks. Carefully avoiding the broken boards, the rusted nails, he moves toward the sun. Into the bright beach. He blinks. He returns to his beach mat, again he drinks from the thermos of protein. Removing his trunks, he walks naked into the ocean's tide, letting the water wash his body. The old fisherman and his ragged wife continue obliviously staring toward the horizon vanishing in the rising mist. Clothes adjusted now—the warm sun evaporating the moisture on his body—blue-tinged sunglasses covering his eyes again, beach mat rolled, thermos under one arm, Jim looks at the dark shell of crumbling pier. Nothing seems to move there, no sound comes from it. A youngman emerges from out of the scorched darkness. He and Jim glance at each other in recognition. Is that the youngman he fucked or the one he kissed? They walk away in opposite directions. VOICE OVER: Promiscuous Rage VOICE OVER: Promiscuous Rage I SPEAK TO a mixed group of gay and straight people: The promiscuous homosexual is a sexual revolutionary. Each moment of his outlaw existence he confronts repressive laws, repressive “morality.” Parks, alleys, subway tunnels, garages, streets—these are the battlefields. To the sexhunt he brings a sense of choreography, ritual, and mystery—sex-cruising with an electrified instinct that sends and receives messages of orgy at any moment, any place.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “Fucker,” Farnland said, but then he smiled, showing Charles his teeth, gnarly and green-yellow. Charles smiled back. Pathos was what Farnland had called his “dumb number.” It was, he said often during rehearsal, art’s most noble pursuit. One evening, one of the other dancers had jokingly said, What about ethos? And Farnland, from a seated position, had flung a hard-shell water bottle at her head. Then he’d shouted them all down for ten minutes about making snide little remarks and the terrors of their generation. What did any of them know about art? About anything? Charles half wished that Farnland would make a scene now. That he’d do something. But he didn’t. Farnland waved him off and pushed out into the hall. The noise from the class next door, the music, filled the room briefly, and then was gone. Charles flexed his fist and worked over his knee. Little old man, full of spite. But Charles had done nothing to stop him. • • • Charles cut through the courtyard, scattering a group of smoking students. They trailed white smoke, legible in the piercing daylight. His sweat had turned to a chalky crust, and he could feel it breaking up when he moved, cold sneaking in against his skin. The class had done its work. His muscles were warm, and he felt pliant, alive. He’d pulled the brace on to give his knee some relief. On the other side of the courtyard, he slipped into the dance library. Sophie often haunted the upper levels of the library in the media room, looking over old choreography. She could have streamed it on her phone in high definition, but she liked browsing through the years of archival footage, poring over little-known, minor dancers, taking bits here and there from everyone like a magpie. He found her sitting on the floor with an enormous album covering her entire lap. She was running her finger up and down the list, deciding which to take out. She leaned down over it, exposing the tender white nape of her neck. He kissed her there before she knew he was present, and she jumped, screaming. “Shh,” he said as he crouched. His knee crackled like static. “You are a menace,” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “What are you looking at?” He sat down to take the weight off. “Old shit.” She handed him the book, the pages yellowed, little black disks tucked inside plastic wrap, neat type glued next to each one. “God, you stink.” “I had practice.” “That’s not practice smell,” she said. “That’s not practice smell at all.” He squeezed his legs together, thinking that might help, but she just snorted at him. “Where’s your phone?” “I don’t know, dead probably,” he said, looking but not looking at the album. “I called you,” she said. “After you left last night.” “Oh, well, it died, so.”

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  Because soon I worked out his schedule, learned his routine by heart, and knew where he’d be and when he’d be there so that I could be there too, dressed sacrificially. Because the next time I saw him—at another party, this time encircled by a blond-girl halo—I sauntered over to him and delivered the line I’d rehearsed. Remember me? From the swings. Because he remembered. Because when we first kissed, we kissed until sunrise, until there was steam on our clothes. Because he and I made out again, and then again, also again, additionally again, until one morning, recovering from gymnastic dry humping, I realized, á la romantic-comedian Emma Bovary: I have a lover! A lover!! And he’s a slutty DJ with a longboard and a six-pack, of both beer and stomach-muscle. Because I wanted to be his girlfriend; and because I would’ve settled for being his waitress. Because when our senior year was under way he told me that he didn’t want to have uncommitted, unspecific-someone, brainless-slut sex anymore, that he’d gotten it out of his system, that he’d spurn all other girls for me. Because I was terrifically excited to notch my spotless bedpost, to be Intimate with him. Because in the sexual debut of my mind’s eye, I’d concurrently discover and execute the maneuvers of a soft-core seduction that prefaced what would resemble a physical struggle—a catalogue of spiritual sexual practices (some standing); a parade of romantic lechery—we’d give everything of ourselves and take everything of each other, we’d get lost unto it, searching each other’s bodies in a carnal interrogation that would most likely ignite a blind fury—fervid, raw, athletic, durational, demonic, transformational, professional—he’d possess me, and I’d surrender out of strength, as my gift, and yield to him as he bore through my flesh, passion all unbridled, until at some point I begged for mercy, seared to the bones, ravaged, and I’d collapse next to him on the (God-willing unbroken) bed, our designed-for-each-other limbs entwined in damp sheets, and trembling, we’d lie together postcoitally for hours, emptied, undone, our unquenchable hunger quenched. Because in a nutshell I figured I was in store for some crazy fucking. Because I’d anticipated some initial agony but thought it would, over time, be rewarded with tons of ecstasy, like the first sex scene in The Fountainhead that I’d read at eighteen, when I registered a heartbeat south of my heart as Howard Roark took Dominique Francon by force. Because I was well-rounded and also read Cosmopolitan. Because I could flip to any page in the aughts and find tips and tricks that promised we can all be beautiful if only we learn to give a better blow job. Because of more advice to surrender sexually and to accept the double standard that a man’s pleasure is fundamental to his well-being and hers optional or nonapplicable. Because almost always the number one goal was to nimbly accommodate and sa-tis-fy your man by indulging his uncontrollable primal biological urges.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  On the other side he thought of the gaine, and the passing pleasure of the crownes of gold; in the end the desire of the money did more prevaile then the feare of death, for the beauty of the flowrishing crownes did so sticke in his mind, that where the menaces of his master compelled him to tarry at home, the pestilent avarice of gold egged him out a doores, wherefore putting all shame aside, without further delay, he declared all the whole matter to his Mistresse, who according to the nature of a woman, when she heard him speake of so great a summe she bound chastity in a string, and gave authority to Myrmex to rule her in that case. Myrmex seeing the intent of his Mistresse, was very glad, and for great desire of the gold, he ran hastily to Philesiterus, declaring that his Mistresse was consented to his mind, wherefore he demanded the gold which he promised. Then incontinently Philesiterus delivered him tenne Crownes, and when night came, Myrmex brought him disguised into his mistresses Chamber. About Midnight when he and she were naked together, making sacrifice unto the Goddesse Venus, behold her husband (contrary to their expectation) came and knocked at the doore, calling with a loud voice to his Servant Myrmex: whose long tarrying increased the suspition of his Master, in such sort that he threatned to beat Myrmex cruelly: but he being troubled with feare, and driven to his latter shifts, excused the matter saying: that he could not find the key: by reason it was so darke. In the meane season Philesiterus hearing the noise at the doore, slipt on his coat and privily ran out of the Chamber. When Myrmex had opened the doore to his Master that threatned terribly, and had let him in, he went into the Chamber to his wife: In the mean while Myrmex let out Philesiterus, and barred the doores fast, and went againe to bed. The next morning when Barbarus awaked, he perceived two unknown slippers lying under his bed, which Philesiterus had forgotten when he went away. Then he conceived a great suspition and jealousie in mind, howbeit he would not discover it to his wife, neither to any other person, but putting secretly the slippers into his bosome, commanded his other Servants to bind Myrmex incontinently, and to bring him bound to the Justice after him, thinking verily that by the meane of the slippers he might boult out the matter.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “Serves you right,” Hartjes said a little more pointedly than he meant, but then, to make up for his roughness, he stroked Simon’s foot, passing his palm back and forth along its length, up to the ankle and then down, pressing with his palms to get at the stiffness in the sole. Simon leaned back in his chair and let Hartjes work on his feet. The kitchen was quiet except for the crackle and snap in the wood-burning stove and sometimes the sound of Simon’s bones popping. Hartjes felt own his body loosening up, could feel himself growing closer to Simon the longer he touched him. The opening of Simon’s shirt, the blue flannel unbuttoned, sagged like the tongue of some loyal animal and revealed the smooth, pale white of his throat and chest. Hartjes wanted to want him, the same way he wanted to see the rise and swell of Simon’s chest, the firm clench of his stomach, and to feel hot all over with need and the slick, gathering wet that sluiced the glide into desire. He wanted it all, yet what he felt, what he really felt in the seat of his body, where his soul nestled and hummed, was the companionable happiness that came with friendship. But he could see hunger in Simon’s eyes, hunger and other things, other shapes of feelings that he wanted to ask Simon about but couldn’t bring himself to. Simon put his hand to his own throat and worked the shirt open more, ran his hand up his neck and to his mouth and then back down through the shirt, popping the buttons open so that his white undershirt showed, and then lower into the front of his pants, like he was searching for loose change. But Hartjes just kept at his feet, his thumb between the two toes, clean and white, and his fingers on the heel, making the foot arch, bend until he could feel the tendons stretching. He sank lower in his chair, spread his thighs, and let that brace him. Simon groaned and grunted and sometimes lifted his hips or shivered as if he were cold. Hartjes gripped Simon’s ankle and held it as tight as he could. And then he let go, and Simon, having slid low in his chair, seemed to surface in himself, his eyes glossy, his breath ragged. It had been enough for him to watch Simon abandon himself. It had been enough to cause it, to see it, to be a part of Simon’s desire, so that even if Hartjes could not bring himself to want it, he could at least enjoy the sight of Simon wanting, needing. He was hard. They both were hard, but what was to be done for it? Let it rest, he thought. A thick blue vein throbbed at the base of Simon’s throat, pulsed when Simon swallowed. His chest was red. His throat was red. He was watching Hartjes, and Hartjes watched the animal part of Simon submerge itself into the icy pool of higher brain function.